A follow-up article on Geri Halliwell - gotbeer.
YO-YO HALLIWELL
Jul 10 2003
How fame, food and fortune have shaped former Spice Girl Geri
Lindsay Clydesdale
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AS these pictures clearly show, chart star Geri Halliwell's weight is a bit like her career - up and down.
When the Spice Girls ruled the world, she flaunted her greatest hits with pride, but leaving Girl Power behind, her peaks were few and far between.
And now, with her acting career about to take off with a role in Sex And The City, she's looking swell once more.
Her current curvy figure has gained her the kind of tabloid attention she hasn't seen since her last celebrity boyfriend dumped her.
Filming alongside Kim Cattrall on the New York set this week, Geri let it all hang out. It seems troubled Geri's faddy diets, obsessive exercising and eating disorders have finally been given the heave-ho - thanks, it seems, to the singer's ticking biological clock.
With her big sister pregnant, it seems Geri's feeling more broody than normal.
She's given up her punishing regime, which often verged on starvation, and seen her dress size go up from a tiny size six to the more healthy size 12.
She admits: "My body has gained a little weight, but actually it feels really healthy. I feel sexier with a little bit more flesh to my bones."
Given her habit of fluctuating weight, it's anyone's guess how long this look will last. But if she's smart, Geri will keep the curves.
A few months ago, her US TV show, All American Girl, was axed mid-series as viewers failed to warm to the skinny blonde presenter. But her new buxom look has already turned around her image in Hollywood.
As well as the plum role in Sex And The City, plucked from under the nose of rival and old bandmate Victoria Beckham, Geri's also landed a job with Fox TV, presenting the US version of Stars In Their Eyes.
Like many screwed-up starlets, Geri's figure and diet were fairly healthy before she set her sights on a showbiz career.
Photos of the teenaged Geri show a confident, curvy and toned young woman, happy to show off her lithe body.
Then came the tough auditions as she sought her big break. Brain-washed into believing she had to be thin, she began to suffer from anorexia and bulimia - until she won a place in the Spice Girls and regained her lost muscles, shape and weight.
Indeed, hard as it is to believe now, she even wore big, tummy-controlling pants under the tight, red-sequinned dress she wore to the Brits in 1997.
Earlier, she'd wowed the crowd with her infamous Union Jack dress, spilling out of the top and flashing firm thighs.
When she left the Spice Girls, Geri shed the red hair and weight, and re- emerged with a shapely, toned figure.
The video for her second solo single Mi Chico Latino, showed her honey- skinned and healthy, and at her sexiest yet.
But it wasn't to last. Escaping to LA to record her second solo album, she was tempted to try several new fads including the notorious Atkins Diet.
Her Fame-inspired video for It's Raining Men revealed a gaunt and bony star, who had taken to sneaking puffs on a cigarette or playing with a plate of lettuce leaves instead of eating properly.
Insisting her tiny figure was all down to yoga, Geri looked terrible - and her public image took a nosedive.
Last year, the front cover of her second autobiography, For The Record, showed her standing naked with a tape measure wrapped round her breasts.
But the message - that she was in great shape through healthy eating and exercise - sounded hollow when the book revealed her binge-eating, bulimia and love- hate relationship with her image and food.
Hopefully, she has now learned her lesson. For Geri, bigger is better - and a healthy figure is her surest way to a healthy bank balance.
l.clydesdale~dailyrecord.co.uk