Crazy Spice: Geri Halliwell's former manager says there's no star quite as needy, eccentric or endearingly bonkers

Erratic: Geri Halliwell could be sweet and kind but also self-absorbed and needy, says former manager Jenny Frankfurt

During her 20-year career in Hollywood, manager Jenny Frankfurt worked with some of the greatest divas in showbusiness, from Mariah Carey to Jennifer Lopez.

But none was quite so high-maintenance or needy as former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. Here, Jenny reveals the tears, tantrums and craziness of their eight-year relationship.

The phone rang just as I was dashing out for an evening drinks party hosted by actor Will Smith. ‘My leg hurts,’ Geri wailed down the line. It was 2am in London and I was 6,000 miles away in LA.

What I wanted to say was: ‘What the hell do you expect me to do about it?’ But, of course, I didn’t say that. I was Geri’s manager and had been for a year by then — although it felt like ten.

I’d learned quickly that when Geri clicked her fingers, you jumped. ‘Let’s talk through what this could be,’ I sighed. So we did — for 20 minutes. She had cramp.

I spent eight years, on and off, with Geri as her manager and general dogsbody.

My duties included everything from setting up numerous deals, including her legendary cameo appearance in Sex And The City, to collecting her contraception and assembling her exercise equipment.

Geri could be sweet, kind and generous. But she was also the most needy, self-absorbed and paranoid person I’ve ever encountered — and, believe me, they aren’t in short supply in my business.

One minute you’d be sitting in a car with her singing along to The Sound Of Music, the next she’d be in tears and saying her life was a mess, her career was all washed up and what was I going to do about it? Just when I’d be on the verge of telling her to get lost, she’d send cute little emails asking for my advice and telling me she didn’t know how she’d survive without me.

The first time I encountered Geri was in 2002. She was desperate to make a name for herself in LA and enlisted my help.

We met in a coffee shop next to her gym. She was dwarfed by her huge, purple-feathered coat and hadn’t brushed her hair. It was plain to see how thin she was. Geri was addicted to exercise at that time and suffering from severe bulimia.

Former partners: Jenny Frankfurt worked with Geri Halliwell for eight years of highs and lows

Throughout the time I knew her, she weighed her food obsessively and threw up if she considered she’d eaten too much.

My first day on the job as Geri’s manager was at a cover shoot for UK Cosmopolitan in Malibu. She spent most of the day wandering around topless. She had no inhibitions in that way and was particularly proud of her breasts, which had, after all, played an important part in her Ginger Spice image.

During one meeting for a possible TV show, she went into the room, lay on the floor and started doing yoga while the baffled executives were trying to discuss the project with her.

Afterwards, I gently suggested that, next time, she might want to sit on the sofa, as some people are uncomfortable talking business to a woman standing on her head.

At that, she yelled: ‘I am Geri Halliwell and Geri Halliwell knows what she is doing.’ She often referred to herself in the third person.

One of the most bizarre projects she wanted to get off the ground was an idea she had for a game show called Risk.

I remember Geri squealing with excitement when I told her Robbie lived just down the road from me. But, like so many of Geri’s men, he quickly lost interest and she was left heartbroken, wondering what she’d done wrong.

It involved her dressing as a superhero and performing a series of stunts or dares set for her by a contestant. If she successfully completed the tasks, the ‘lucky’ contestant could win a lunch with her, or a personal concert at Wembley Stadium — she was always desperate to appear at Wembley again. Her constant regret about leaving the Spice Girls was departing before they played their big show there.

She’d insist I spend all day and night at her house — sometimes until 3am — putting presentations together for each stunt while she got massages or did yoga. Then, when I got home and finally climbed into bed, she’d wake me with endless phone calls.

We’d go out at 5am to try out potential stunts for the show. One of these involved her climbing up a billboard on Sunset Boulevard. She’d constantly yell about me not getting the shot right or that she needed help getting down.

One day, she decided getting a bikini wax could be part of the show. Somehow I found myself holding a video camera in a place called Pink Shears while a large German woman was getting Geri ready for a Brazilian wax. Even by Hollywood standards, it was insane.

Finding a boyfriend, though, was always the most important thing to Geri. She’d been madly in love with Robbie Williams before I knew her, but I got the impression that while they had ‘fooled around’, they never actually slept together.

I remember Geri squealing with excitement when I told her he lived just down the road from me. But, like so many of Geri’s men, he quickly lost interest and she was left heartbroken, wondering what she’d done wrong.

Ill-fated couple: Robbie Williams and Geri Halliwell's relationship failed to last

There were lots of boyfriends after Robbie, but they never lasted long. Most guys seemed to find her too self-obsessed and needy.

In 2004, Geri had a part in a truly awful, low-budget movie called The Fat Slags. This starred the very charming Jerry O’Connell, with whom she quickly became romantically involved.

I cringed when she told me she had given him her first autobiography, If Only, so he could get to know the real her. The relationship was in full swing when they returned to LA, then Jerry called asking me to tell her it was over. I sensed he thought she was completely nuts.

Geri took it terribly. She went bonkers, acting up in public and looking for Jerry in the corners of nightclubs. It was pitiful to watch.

This was Ginger Spice, a member of the biggest-selling British girlband of all time — whose mantra was ‘Girl Power’ — and here she was, a pathetically broken woman. She started seeing her daughter Bluebell’s father, the writer Sacha Gervasi, shortly after she returned to LA following her album Passion flopping in 2005.

She was worried about money — even though she had millions in the bank. She rented an inexpensive car and started looking for a cheaper house. When her hormones settled down after the first trimester, she said she didn’t want to work with me any more. I’ve no idea why, it’s just what Geri did.

Sacha is funny, smart and talented. He’d been crazy about Geri for years. She wasn’t in love with him, but she was at a low point and needed someone to care for her. We were sitting in an LA restaurant called Ammo waiting for a friend to join us when she told me she was pregnant.

The next week, we had lunch again at a different restaurant and she told me she’d stopped seeing Sacha. She’d called him and said: ‘Can you meet me at Starbucks?’ Within five minutes, the relationship was declared over.

I took care of Geri through the first three months of her pregnancy. She was very uncomfortable with what was happening to her body and seemed almost disgusted by her pregnancy at first.

She was worried about money — even though she had millions in the bank. She rented an inexpensive car and started looking for a cheaper house. When her hormones settled down after the first trimester, she said she didn’t want to work with me any more. I’ve no idea why, it’s just what Geri did.

I didn’t see her again until I threw her a baby-shower the day before she returned to London for Bluebell’s birth in 2006. I didn’t want there to be any animosity between us. She was troubled, and I had a soft spot for her, so we made our peace.

Reunited: The Spice Girls got back together for a series of concerts around the globe in 2007

Later that year, she invited me to join her at the Beckhams’ house for New Year’s Eve. She told me it would be fun, but warned me there would be lots of drinking. Geri’s friendship with Victoria had been rocky since she walked out on the Spice Girls and she was keen to make amends.

Bluebell was already asleep when we arrived at Beckingham Palace. There was a huge Christmas tree in the hall and several tables of photographs, one devoted completely to about 30 pictures of Victoria and David with Tom Cruise. Victoria told us to put Bluebell in the rather pretentiously named ‘Audrey Hepburn room’, which had a huge image from Breakfast At Tiffany’s over the bed.

It was a small gathering that night: David and Victoria, Gordon Ramsay and his wife Tana, Victoria’s sister Louise and her husband, David’s football manager and his wife and a couple of others I didn’t know.

Chefs from Ramsay’s Maze restaurant were in the kitchen preparing the dinner. We were seated in the little living room off the hall, complete with a small bar and a fireplace with a portrait of David and Victoria hanging over it. Geri was right about one thing: the drink did flow. Victoria was drinking wine and going on and on about Jennifer Lopez. She said the best gift she’d received that year had been from Lopez — a jewel-encrusted Swarovski digital camera. It looked exactly as you can imagine a gift from Lopez would — flashy.

I saw David and Victoria coming out of a small bathroom to the left of the front door. They were giggling and smoothing their clothing, so I guess the fire’s still burning in that marriage

Then Victoria said she wished she had Lopez’s life: the constant glamour, the clothes and none of the responsibility that came with children (this was before Lopez had her twins.)

When we were called into dinner, I walked in beside Ramsay and talked about how much I wanted kids. Somehow we got into talking about his sperm count. He was a big flirt.

Suddenly, he said to his wife: ‘Tana, do I have sperm frozen somewhere?’ The suggestion, I suppose, was that he’d let me have it.

Dinner was truly amazing, but Victoria barely ate a thing.

As the wine and champagne flowed, people started getting out of their seats and moving around the table.

David mentioned he’d just done a photoshoot with renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz where he was on a horse dressed as Prince Charming. He sent his manager to get the photos, but just as we were looking at them, Romeo — their middle child — wandered into the dining room, having woken up.

David immediately picked him up and cuddled him until he calmed down. He seemed to be a great dad.

I went to check on Bluebell and when I came back I saw David and Victoria coming out of a small bathroom to the left of the front door. They were giggling and smoothing their clothing, so I guess the fire’s still burning in that marriage.

Long-term love: Geri Halliwell with partner Henry Beckwith

Back in LA, I did meet somebody and have a child. It was then that I knew I could no longer cope with Geri’s demands and crazy world. I had stuck with her for eight years — through good and bad, personally and professionally, through endless conversations about bowel movements, men and PMT.

Perhaps I crossed the line as a manager, but that line was always moving. She demanded so much and wanted you all of one day and not at all the next.

It was like dealing with a child — one going through the terrible twos.

I last saw her four years ago when I was six months pregnant. She dropped me at the Tube in London when the car I’d ordered to take me to Heathrow Airport failed to arrive.

I haven’t heard from Geri since, but a part of me still expects my sleep to be disturbed at 3am by an excitable woman in England who wants to tell me about a toy she bought her dog — or how she can’t decide whether to cut her nails or let them grow.

A lift to the airport would have been nice, but she left me to it — despite being pregnant, loaded down with luggage and unfamiliar with the tube.

Even though she had moved back to London, we continued to keep in contact by email and text until six months ago, when she told me she was doing a duet with Enrique Iglesias and had, on a whim, dyed her hair bright red.

I made a few calls, only to discover nobody knew a thing about any duet or hair colour change. I don’t know why she told me this, and I wasn’t interested in finding out.

Geri seemed to no longer to trust me and, by then, I had grown exasperated by her antics by then.

I haven’t heard from Geri since, but a part of me still expects my sleep to be disturbed at 3am by an excitable woman in England who wants to tell me about a toy she bought her dog — or how she can’t decide whether to cut her nails or let them grow.

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