Spring Break
Geri Halliwell: Just for the Record
Krysten Weller
Issue date: 11/7/03 Section: Arts & Entertainment
Singer Geri Halliwell has written her account of what happened when she left a successful pop group, the Spice Girls, to embark on a solo career. Halliwell also talks about her battle with bulimia that was magnified by the constant public scrutiny she faced as a member of the Spice Girls. She shares how her illness kept her from attending award shows because she thought she looked too fat and her preparation for music video shoots by embarking on "starvation" diets.
"I'd live on fruit like melon for days and obsessively work out just thinking about how I had to get slim in time for the video shoot." She said people remarked on how "healthy" she looked in the video, "But how wrong they were. I wasn't healthy because I wasn't eating properly and although I was slim at the time, that was a mirage too because the tough regime of the diet was always going to lead me to binge and put the weight back on."
Halliwell also talks about the difficulties of having a relationship when you're in the public eye. She began dating a well-known British radio presenter named Chris Evens. He had been a tough critic of the Spice Girls at first, but he eventually apologized to the group after seeing them perform and he and Halliwell began dating. However, when the relationship ended, Halliwell was bombarded with media attention about the breakup. Several of the newspapers even put photos of her on their front-page with the word, "Dumped," across her picture. She also shares how she had to face more embarrassing headlines when she later ran into Chris with his new wife and had the whole event documented by a photographer who had snuck into the hotel for a picture.
We also hear stories from her time as a Spice Girl and the issues she faced after she left the group. Halliwell chalks up her departure from the group as being a "fear of intimacy" issue. Even when her solo career was going well, she still faced personal setbacks when she'd hole up in her home eating sweets and avoiding the public. She realized she had hit bottom when she dug through a garbage bag for a piece of leftover chocolate cake. She decided to go to a group therapy session to get help for her eating disorder, but she found her car surrounded by tabloid photographers when she left the meeting. This time the headlines read, "Ginger the Binger."
The book also features a large collection of photographs taken by Dean Freeman who is best known for his work on soccer star David Beckham's biography. The pictures range from Halliwell's Spice Girl days, to family photos, and more recent photo shoots. The pictures serve to document the many changes Halliwell has made in her life. The photos start off showing her with her famous "Ginger" bright red hair and then show the subdued style she adopted when she became a UNICEF spokesperson. Her flaming red hair may be gone, but her flamboyant personality remains.
Halliwell offers an in-depth look at the life of a celebrity. She doesn't sugarcoat the difficult things that she's dealt with, but rather shares them in hope of educating others. This is a great book that shows the challenges of being a celebrity as well as the ongoing recovery process of someone with an eating disorder. Halliwell has done an excellent job of telling her story.
"I'd live on fruit like melon for days and obsessively work out just thinking about how I had to get slim in time for the video shoot." She said people remarked on how "healthy" she looked in the video, "But how wrong they were. I wasn't healthy because I wasn't eating properly and although I was slim at the time, that was a mirage too because the tough regime of the diet was always going to lead me to binge and put the weight back on."
Halliwell also talks about the difficulties of having a relationship when you're in the public eye. She began dating a well-known British radio presenter named Chris Evens. He had been a tough critic of the Spice Girls at first, but he eventually apologized to the group after seeing them perform and he and Halliwell began dating. However, when the relationship ended, Halliwell was bombarded with media attention about the breakup. Several of the newspapers even put photos of her on their front-page with the word, "Dumped," across her picture. She also shares how she had to face more embarrassing headlines when she later ran into Chris with his new wife and had the whole event documented by a photographer who had snuck into the hotel for a picture.
We also hear stories from her time as a Spice Girl and the issues she faced after she left the group. Halliwell chalks up her departure from the group as being a "fear of intimacy" issue. Even when her solo career was going well, she still faced personal setbacks when she'd hole up in her home eating sweets and avoiding the public. She realized she had hit bottom when she dug through a garbage bag for a piece of leftover chocolate cake. She decided to go to a group therapy session to get help for her eating disorder, but she found her car surrounded by tabloid photographers when she left the meeting. This time the headlines read, "Ginger the Binger."
The book also features a large collection of photographs taken by Dean Freeman who is best known for his work on soccer star David Beckham's biography. The pictures range from Halliwell's Spice Girl days, to family photos, and more recent photo shoots. The pictures serve to document the many changes Halliwell has made in her life. The photos start off showing her with her famous "Ginger" bright red hair and then show the subdued style she adopted when she became a UNICEF spokesperson. Her flaming red hair may be gone, but her flamboyant personality remains.
Halliwell offers an in-depth look at the life of a celebrity. She doesn't sugarcoat the difficult things that she's dealt with, but rather shares them in hope of educating others. This is a great book that shows the challenges of being a celebrity as well as the ongoing recovery process of someone with an eating disorder. Halliwell has done an excellent job of telling her story.
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