Portal Melanie C || www.melaniec.com.br ||

In 1998 Spice World The Movie continued to be launched in several other countries: Germany (January 1st), Australia (January 8th), New Zealand (January 8th), French speaking region in Switzerland (January 16th), United States (January 23rd), Singapore (January 27th), France (January 28th), Kuwait (January 29th), Malaysia (January 29th), Poland (January 30th), Brazil (February 6th), Norway (February 6th), Switzerland (February 6th), Argentina (February 12th), Mexico (February 13th), Denmark (February 27th), Peru (February 27th), Slovakia (March 5th), Hungary (March 26th), Portugal (April 24th), Estonia (May 1st), Thailand (May 1st), Finland (May 8th).

On January 27th Too Much was finally released in the United States.

Unlike the other singles from the group, Stop, released on March 9th, didn’t make to number one. It only got to number 2 second to "It's Like That" by Run DMC.

On May 25th Spice World The Movie was released in VHS for purchase.

The Spice Girls got together with Ian McCulloch from Echo & The Bunnymen, Tommy Scott from Space and Simon Fowler from Ocean Colour Scene to record England’s theme for the World Cup: (How Does It Feel To Be) On Top Of The World.

The European tour begins on February 24th and ends on May 29th with 53 dates.

On May 31st Geri Halliwell officially announced she’d left the group. Her spokesman, Julian Turton, read Geri’s statement for the world press. Right after, the Spice Girl’s spokesman Alan Edwards read the band’s official statement: “We are upset and saddened by Geri’s departure but we are very supportive in whatever she wants to do. The Spice Girls are here to stay, see you at the stadiums. We are sorry to all our fans for having to go through all of this.
All our love, Victoria, Emma, Mel C, Mel B.
PS: Friendship never ends”
The spokesman added that the plans for the American Tour wouldn’t be changed.

The news came out like a bomb because nothing previously indicated that decision. Except for Geri’s absence at the recording for a show on BBC and her non-attendance at a gig in Oslo (Norway), two days after the official departure announcement. Virgin Records' spokesperson even assured that Geri hadn’t been in those last 2 commitments due to a gastric illness. Geri affirms that her decision to leave had to do with the fact that she wanted to participate in a lecture about breast cancer but the group’s schedule caused her to miss it.

(How Does It Feel To Be) On Top Of The World was released in the UK on June 1st.

Stop was released in the United States on June 2nd

Another announcement from the Spice World: Mel B and Victoria are pregnant.

On June 9th, Victoria, Melanie C, Mel B and Emma performed with Luciano Pavarotti at Pavarotti & Friends For Children Of Liberia in Modena, Italy. It was the first performance of the group after Geri’d left officially.

The four girls continue with the American tour. That were 40 shows from June 15th to August 26th and four extra concerts in the United Kingdom, at Don Valley stadium in Sheffield and Wembley stadium in London, officially ending on September 20th.

During the tour Melanie met Anthony Kiedis vocalist from Red Hot Chili Peppers who even went to a Spice Girls’ concert and gave her flowers. They went out a couple of times.

Viva Forever was released on July 20th and had very little promotion but stayed in the number one spot for 2 weeks.

During the American tour Bruce Willis paid for the plane tickets to take Mel to the opening of Planet Hollywood in Canada. He gave her only 1 hour to learn the lyrics to Down In Hollywood because he wanted to make a live duet with her. She learned the song very quickly and both of them did a great performance!

On September 13th Melanie attends Melanie B and Jimmy Gulzar’s wedding in Buckinghmshire, England.

Only Mel C and Emma attended the Europe Music Awards that year in Milan, Italy and received two awards for the Spice Girls. At the after party in Donatella Versace's house Melanie began a short romance with Damon Albarn, Blur’s vocalist.

During the year the band wins the American Music Awards, the World Music Awards, the Brit Awards, the Billboard Awards, Disney Channel Awards and MTV Europe Music Awards.

Many tabloids started to write about Melanie’s rumored romances with famous singers: Anthony Kiedis who took her to have a tattoo done during the American tour, Robbie Williams and Damon Albarn, with whom Melanie was photographed with at Donatella Versace's after Europe Music Awards party.

Bryan Adams invited Melanie to make a duet. Bryan talks about how he asked Mel to sing with him: “When You're Gone was the last song written for the album (On A Day Like Today), just before I started recording. I was doing a video for On a Day Like Today in Los Angeles, and Mel C was staying in the same hotel. I actually met her in the lift going up to my room. She started talking and told me, 'I really want to do my own thing, eventually.' I said, 'Well, I've got a song if you want to sing on it.' She said, 'Really?!' and I said, 'Yeah.' So she came and sang on it. I thought it was kind of amusing. She was really nice.”

On November 4th Melanie goes to singer Kavana’s birthday party and the paparazzis take pictures of them kissing, bringing back the rumours of a relationship that dated back from 1997.

On November 30th 1998 the single When You're Gone was released in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Japan.

When Bryan Adams asked Melanie to sing with him, virgin records tried to stop the duet from happening as it would be released under Bryan’s label, A&M Records. Bryan says: "Virgin Records didn't want to help us at all," he says. "They were most uncooperative. They did everything they could to try and stop Mel's picture and her name being on the record, everything. I've no idea why. I think what it was is that the Spice Girls have a single out at the same time as When You're Gone and they don't want anything to detract from that."

The Spice Girls got back together to promote their new Christmas single: Goodbye, released on December 14th. That single equaled the girls to the Beatles: 3 consecutive Christmas number 1s.

In December, Mel confirms the relationship with musical producer Jake Davies in an interview to Cosmopolitan.

In 1999 Melanie’s life was about to change one more time. In January she was still doing a few appearances on some TV shows with Bryan Adams to promote When You’re Gone.

On February 19th Mel B’s daughter Phoenix Chi was born, followed by Victoria’s son Brooklyn on March 4th. That meant Melanie was on vacation but she didn’t want to stop working… she decided to travel to Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles Melanie was far away from the British paparazzi and started to meet several celebrities, to go to movie premieres and got into the studio to write the stuff for her first solo album, without leaving the Spice Girls.

Melanie had dinner with Courtney Love, Madonna, Guy Oseary and met many producers such as Rick Rubin, who would help her with her project for the solo album.

The lesbian rumours also made the headlines after she was photographed at the Titanic Club dancing with her friend Natalie Appleton from the All Saints.

In April, Mel was invited to sing with the rock band Neurotic Outsiders at the Viper Room. The Neurotic Outsiders was formed by former Sex Pistols, Duran Duran and Guns ’n’ Roses members (two of them today in Velvet Revolver). Melanie sang the Sex Pistols’ classics: Pretty Vacant and Anarchy In The UK and also Billy Idol’s hit, White Wedding. The fast inclusion of Melanie, coming from a pop band, among big rock acts brought the rumour that she was dating Steve Jones, former Sex Pistols’ and at the time Neurotic Outsider’s member. Steve said: "I'm old enough to be her grandad!"

In June Melanie attended the premiere of the movie Austin Powers – The Spy Who Shagged Me in Los Angeles with Mel B. Mel B had one of her songs in the soundtrack.

Melanie’s solo song Gaga got into the soundtrack of Big Daddy movie starring Adam Sandler.

On July 4th Melanie went back to England to Victoria and David Beckham’s wedding.

Everything was ready for the release of the solo album in August, so the promotion began.

On August 19th Melanie did her first solo gig at the Leadmill Club in Sheffield. Then she performed at the V99 Festival and the crowd was shocked with her new look and rock sound… the result: a few people even threw water bottles on stage!

The first single Goin’ Down released on September 27th got a bad reception from the critics, who didn’t enjoy the radical changes on Melanie’s look and the bad language she uses in the song.

The video was banned from many TV stations due to the aggressive performance and the cursing. It damaged the single’s promotion. Melanie also had a throat infection and needed to mime in several appearances.

Melanie gave a controversial interview to Q Magazine: she said that the Spice Girls were just a hobby for her, that she found it difficult to take Geri Halliwell as a serious artist and even confirmed the rumours about experimenting drugs in her teens...

Also on September 27th Melanie began a promotion tour and traveled around the world in practically one month! It was 14 gigs in: England, United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Netherlands and Denmark.

The solo album Northern Star, was finally released on October 18th and debuted at number 10 in the best selling album charts in the United Kingdom.

In the United States it was released on November 2nd.

The Northern Star documentary was exhibited on Much Music Canada, showing the making of the album and Melanie’s everyday life during her time in Los Angeles.

Released only 7 weeks after Goin’ Down (on November 22nd) the single Northern Star was much more successful despite peaking the same chart position as Goin’ Down, number 4.

In December Melanie joined the Spice Girls again to do a Christmas Tour. It was 8 concerts: 4 in Manchester at the Evening News Arena and 4 in London at Earl’s Court. They performed 3 new songs: Right Back At Ya, Woman and Holler.

The Spice Girls got together with many artists to sing the old hit by the Rolling Stones: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll. The recording became a single to raise money to the charity Children’s Promise.

On December 17th, Mel and the other Spice Girls had their wax figures done at Madame Tussaud’s Rock Circus. The museum is a collection of many celebrities wax figures and the Spice Girls were only the second musical group to get their own space there: the first one was the Beatles. Melanie’s figure has the same height and body measures she had back in 1999. She’s wearing a costume she used to wear at the concerts when singing The Lady Is A Vamp and has short hair, apart from all the tattoos she had until 99.

Melanie was invited for the opening of a Virgin Megastore in Glasgow with the record company’s boss, Richard Branson. Mel arrived at Virgin Megastore with Richard climbing down the walls under the rain. The event was broadcasted even in Brazil on CBS, a news network.