LONDON, Aug. 31 (UPI) — Melanie Chisholm, known to the world as Sporty Spice, penned a piece for the U.K.’s “Love Magazine” in which she said that she turned down a role in a potential Spice Girls reunion because “something didn’t feel quite right.”
“The hardest part for me was letting people down, the girls, the fans, civilization,” she said.
Chisholm mused on the ever-changing definition of celebrity and its “glory days.”
“Remember when a little bit of mystery and intrigue ensured our famous faces were true stars,” she said. “When we didn’t know what they were eating via social media, where they were or who they were hanging out with?”
Chisholm, however, was quick to say that she is not one of those people who will complain about the price of fame.
“You’re not going to get me complaining about my life — it’s brilliant,” she said. “I know some people complain about the attention — but I wanted to be famous from the start. Like the rest of the Spice Girls I learnt very early on that you can’t take one slice of the pie when it comes to fame. You have to eat the whole thing.”
Chisholm noted in the essay that, at 42, she will “be a Spice Girl until I die,” but her focus remains on her own career as a singer/songwriter.
“You see, I’m a singer and songwriter. Not a celebrity. The two are very different things,” she said. “You can earn a fortune being a ‘celebrity’ depending on how much dignity you want to keep intact.”
Chisholm also said the constant questions about another Spice Girls reunion have become particularly tiresome, especially since the group briefly reunited in 2007.
“The continuous speculation on whether we will reform to celebrate 20 years of ‘Wannabe’ has been particularly exhausting,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong — I totally get it. But is it a new rule that bands have to reform? Why can’t we just be remembered for our incredible achievements in the nineties.”
Chisholm’s former bandmates, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, and Geri Halliwell, reunited recently for a girl’s night out, though the three said in July that a potential reunion was in the works.
Chisholm said in her piece for Love that Victoria Beckham had “already bowed out” of the reunion, though Beckham has yet to make a statement.
