How did Mel C celebrate the end of the fraught Spice Girls tour?

Congratulations to Mel C, who has just announced her pregnancy.

With all the Spices now having entered parenthood, the chilling prospect of a Lil'Spices tour in 2018 edges ever closer.

Mel C offers an explanation

No Rock invested its faith in Mel C to save us from a Spice Girls reunion. She let us down, and the world suffered the consequences - Gordon Smart making jokes about his erection, a lukewarm, legacy-trashing comeback track, Geri Halliwell released back into the wild. And Emma Bunton sitting in for Judy Finnegan.

Now, Mel C explains why:

"I was the one who didn't want the reunion. I took a hell of a lot of persuading because I was so reluctant to go back into it for all sorts of reasons.

"Part of it was I felt we could never recapture those times, and there was a big part of me that just didn't want to be reminded of who I was back then.

"It's amazing to think that as part of the biggest band on the planet I spent most of my time completely miserable because I had a terrible eating disorder.

"At the height of it all I wasn't eating and I was exercising so much my periods stopped and my bone density was low."

But her main worry is the impact her skinny image may have had on her fans: "The worst thing for me was that I was a role model to millions of young girls," she says.

There's an awful lot of good ideas for not doing it. So how much - sorry, what was it - that persuaded her to get back on the saddle?

"Eventually I thought: ‘Why not?' The other girls really wanted to do it. At first I was frightened of being overwhelmed by all those old feelings, but then I started to feel that maybe this was something I had to do.

"The idea of putting on a great pop show was appealing, as was the idea of spending time with the girls.

"It was an incredibly positive experience. We're all older and wiser, and we put a lot of ghosts to rest on that tour.

"When it was over, I was finally proud to be a Spice Girl. All those frightened, negative, mixed feelings had disappeared.

"Whatever was said, we all got on incredibly well. We've had our fights and feuds, but we're now more like sisters than friends."

We're trying to process this - so the time she was in the band was horrible, forcing her to make herself sick and setting up a horrible set of expectations in young fans - so the idea of "spending time" doing that again was somehow attractive?

Perhaps it seemed so in retrospect. Or at least when the cheque had definitely cleared.

Still, it was nice for Mel to take a trip down memory lane. She's even been revisiting old rumours:

"I've just come back from Canada," she says, then leans forward and adds: "But they're a bit behind with their gossip. They kept asking me whether I was a lesbian, which was funny and quite sweet.

"I haven't been asked that in years. I know everyone thought I was gay when I had my hair cut and put on a bit of weight, and, of course, because of my tattoos."

Yes. Of course "because of tattoos." Especially the "I am as queer as a Bryan Adams collaboration" one she's got on her left thigh.

Too much of something is hard enough

Can it be true that The Spice Girls are, when off-stage, fighting amongst themselves like angry hornets in a honey storm?

The Sunday People has drawn up a powerpoint presentation of what they claim is the backstage upsetments:

GINGER Spice Geri is fuming that she will earn LESS than the others from the deal - because she quit three years before the band's eventual split in 2001.

SHE and Posh have had huge 'artistic differences' about the Spice Girls' style.

MEL C has also rowed with the others - insisting reforming would be bad for her health.

THE girls travelled to the O2 Dome in Greenwich, South East London, for their press conference in FIVE separate cars in a bid to stop tensions spilling over.

We love the idea that they can't even share a cab to the tour announcement for fear that they might break-up again before they'd even formally reformed.

And what on earth could the "artistic differences" between Posh and Ginger have been about? Who gets to wear the most push-uppy of the push-up bras?

The one piece of soothing balm about this ill-advised comeback is, however bad the coming months are for us, it'll be nothing compared to the suffering of the women backstage.

Spice Girls reunion: No new single being recorded

The drawn out process to bring back the Spice Girls meanders again. Now that Mel C seems to have been beaten down, has anyone actually told her what she's in for? She tells The Sun:

"I was always the one that was against getting back together, but now I'm up for it.

"Nothing has been agreed for definite, but a reunion will happen when the time is right.

"It would be completely nostalgic, playing all the old hits - there will be no new songs like TAKE THAT have done.

"And there certainly won't be a Spice World II movie."

So, no new songs, then.

Which makes you wonder what it is that Victoria Beckham has been telling Mirror about:

"The new songs are a progression of the old Spice stuff - nothing radical and still poppy but a bit different. We are all impressed with them."

Perhaps Mel C just means that there aren't going to be any songs which sound like the ones Take That have done.

Come on, Melanie. You don't have to do this. Say no. Walk away.

Rav exclusively reveals exclusive exclusives, exclusively

Rav Singh, the "hottest showbiz reporter" in Britain, or certainly at the News of the World has got some hot, exclusive, piping news:

POP legend Sir Paul McCartney is secretly planning a blockbuster world tour.

Yes. He's got an album out. That's what, you know, pop stars do. Album, tour, album, tour.

Presumably next week Rav will break it that McCartney intends to release single tracks from the album, in an attempt to get into the pop charts. "My spies tell me that he intends to create a short film to promote the record."

Singh seems convinced the paper has something to do with the tour:

The ex-Beatle, 64, is set for a spectacular six months of gigs in Europe, USA and Japan next year to promote new album Memory Almost Full.

But it is only happening after the News of the World exclusively revealed Macca and Mucca, 39, had settled their divorce war for Bea's sake.

So are we to understand that McCartney wasn't aware that he was getting divorced until he read it in the papers?

Interestingly, after two weeks of solidly insisting that the Spice Girls are recording a secret reunion song, Singh makes no mention this week - not even of Mel C's firm insistence that it ain't going to happen:

There are no plans for a Spice Girls tour that I am aware of. I saw Emma and Geri a few weeks ago and of course we talk about the rumours and things that are going on, but it's the last thing on everybody's mind at the moment, so it's frustrating for me.

But then why should we believe Melanie? She's only in the band; she isn't, after all, Britain's hottest showbiz reporter.

Spice Girls Reunion - it's on. Off. On.

Curiously, if Rav Singh is the king of gossip for the News of the World, why has tha paper's Spice Girls reunion story been farmed out to James Desborough? Is Rav not trusted with the big ones, or is he merely keeping away from the story in case it turns out to be like all those other Spice Reunion stories?

This time, it's claimed the girls are working away in a strange basement recording the song they believe will be the Christmas Number One:

Our exclusive snap shows Geri Halliwell and Emma Bunton emerging from a top-secret recording session in a Brighton basement studio this week.

So, erm, that's two of them, then, perhaps having been recording. What about the others?

Posh Spice, Victoria Beckham, and Scary, Mel B—who are both in Los Angeles—will fly to England to record their parts in a few weeks.

Oh. This is one of those reunions which, erm, doesn't actually involve them getting back together, then?

But what of Mel C, and her firm insistence there will be no reunion?

Mel C, 33, is thought to have been there.

Aha. So, we have two on the other side of the Atlantic, a vague "perhaps Mel C has swung by", and a photo of two women leaving a Brighton basement (not an unusual site in Brighton.)

Is that all we have to go on, then? Not even some vague, unattributed quote?

A Spice insider said: "It's phenomenal news for them, and the girls are really excited."

We're sure Cliff Richard is already fuming, as he can sense the Christmas number one in the bag already.

Spice Girls reunion latest: There isn't one

Despite Victoria Newton's insistence, there are no high-level talks intended to lead to a Las Vegas style Spice Girls reunion. Mel C says so:

"I have had mixed feelings about a reunion but I am against it. My fear is that we could never have the same magic as we had all those years ago.

"You see a lot of bands reforming but I think the Spice Girls were unique and I don't want to ruin what we had."

If that's Mel C with mixed feelings, we'd hate to see her taking a dogmatic line on something.

Mel C: Gay. True.

It's not an answer to 'is Mel C a lesbian'. But, at least, she's going to play GAY. But look, she's got a boyfriend, okay?