Girl Power can’t get the Spices a Mandela invite

 
11 December 2013

Nelson Mandela might have dubbed the Spice Girls his “heroes” after meeting them 16 years ago but it seems that nobody thought to invite Sporty, Scary, Baby, Posh and Ginger to the national memorial service for the great statesman which culminates in his funeral on Sunday. Although reports claimed members of the ex-pop group would be in the aisles today in Johannesburg, it appears that the Wannabe singers’ invitations got lost in the post.

“She didn’t receive an invitation, no,” says a spokesman for Melanie C, before adding that as Sporty is currently the special guest on Jools Holland’s UK tour, she wouldn’t have been able to fly out for today’s event at the FNB stadium anyway. “She’s working. She has commitments here.”

Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell’s spokesmen have all confirmed that their clients aren’t in attendance in South Africa, while Melanie B’s publicist hadn’t heard anything about an invitation.

How could the girls have been overlooked when Mandela himself said — after meeting them in 1997 — “I don’t want to be emotional but this is one of the greatest moments of my life”?

Standing beside him at the time, Halliwell said: “I think there’s a classic speech that Nelson Mandela did and I can’t remember exactly but you mentioned about never suppress yourself, never make yourself feel small for others’ insecurities and that’s what Girl Power is all about so,” she concluded, “I think we’re on the same level” — before quickly adding: “On that view.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in