Geri Halliwell

About Geri Halliwell

Geraldine Estelle "Geri" Halliwell (born 6 August 1972) is an English pop singer-songwriter, children's author, actress and Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. Halliwell first became famous in the late 1990s as a member of the girl group the Spice Girls, which became one of the most successful girl groups of all time, selling in excess of 55 million records worldwide. As a solo artist, she has received four Brit Award nominations,released four number-one singles in the UK and sold around 4 million albums as a solo artist worldwide.

Halliwell was born to Lawrence Halliwell, who was of English/Swedish descent, and his wife Ana María (nee Hidalgo), of Spanish descent from Huesca, Spain and grew up in Watford, Hertfordshire. For a brief time, Halliwell's mother tried to bring her up as a Jehovah's Witness. Halliwell took her A-Levels at Camden School for Girls having taken her GCSEs at Watford Girls Grammar School. Before starting her music career, Halliwell had worked as a nightclub dancer in Majorca (Spain), a model and presenter on the Turkish version of Let's Make a Deal and as a glamour model. Following her rise to fame with the Spice Girls, nude photos of Halliwell were re-published in a number of top-shelf magazines in the UK. During the documentary Spice Girls: Giving You Everything broadcast on UK television on 31 December 2007, Halliwell repeated her claim to have only done 'harmless, topless shots', despite extensive evidence to the contrary, including pictures in her own autobiography.

Halliwell first found fame as one of the five members of the girl group the Spice Girls, and was dubbed Sexy Spice for her seductive outfits and stage costumes. However, she preferred being called Ginger Spice stating, "I always thought of myself as clumsy, not sexy." Of her over-the-top outfits, she is mostly recognized for her famous Union Jack dress that she wore for the 1997 Brit Awards.