Nineteen years ago Wednesday the pop-music world suffered a devastating loss when Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, otherwise known to the general public as Ginger Spice, announced in the middle of a world tour that she would be leaving the group. It was a sudden departure that did not leave much time for goodbyes—or apologies—until now. After a fan account tweeted at Halliwell (who now goes by her married name Geri Horner) on Wednesday to mark the 19th anniversary of her leaving, she tweeted back her apologies.
“I’m sorry about that,” she wrote. “Everything works out in the end, that’s what my mum says!”
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Fans saw Halliwell’s apology—the words they had been awaiting for nearly two decades!—and immediately returned their gracious responses. The public healing began.
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Though this is her first official Twitter apology, Halliwell has spoken before about her reasons for leaving the group in 1998. In a 2010 interview, Halliwell explained that she had been planning to leave in September, at the end of their world tour. But on the tour, Halliwell, who had been asked to give an interview about breast cancer, was told she was not allowed to do so.
“I just got really angry, very emotional about it, because it was something very close to my heart,” she said. “. . . I was meant to be the advocate of girl power, and I felt like a hypocrite if I couldn’t do something . . . for empowering women. So, I had to go. I had no other choice, really.”
Now that we’ve got that out of the way (just under the 20-year mark, Ger!), we can turn our attention to something more important: a Spice Girls reunion. Last July, Halliwell, Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), and Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) announced that they would be part of a Spice Girls reunion concert in Hyde Park. Per a Page Six report in April, the concert is still on, but no further details have been released.
Victoria Beckham (Posh) and Melanie Chisholm (Sporty) did not make an appearance in this announcement video, which was a disappointing note in an otherwise joyous moment. Regardless of exactly how many Spice Girls would actually be onstage at this concert, the promise of more Spice Girls—and the satisfaction of Geri Halliwell’s apology—hang in the air.
