Looks like a certain group is definitely having “The Best Year Ever!” The Spice Girls are reuniting and will release a greatest-hits album and kick off an 11-show world tour in December, it was announced in London today. The two-month tour will begin December 7 in Los Angeles and will include concerts in Vegas, New York City, London, Cologne, Madrid, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney, Capetown and Buenos Aires. Actor Richard E. Grant, who played the group’s manager in their 1997 movie Spice World, introduced the band at the press conference after a video montage of their greatest moments played on screen.
The tour “will be a proper good farewell to our fans,” said Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisholm, who had been portrayed in the British press as the last Spice to agree to a reunion. “A girl is allowed to change her mind,” she quipped. “We only started serious discussions this year. We feel the time is right. I’m very, very excited.”
“We are going to celebrate the past, do a small tour and that will probably be it,” said Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, who had just returned from an Asian vacation with soccer-player husband David Beckham after they said goodbye to their home in Spain on June 18. “Our priority is our families.”
The Spice Girls first conquered the world after their Svengali manager, American Idol creator Simon Fuller, launched their first catchy tune, “Wannabe” in 1996. But the group fired Fuller in 1997; Halliwell quit a year later and the remaining four parted ways in early 2001. Sources first told PEOPLE about the reunion plans in early June. The Girls have been busy lately: Brown welcomed a daughter, Angel Iris, in April; Halliwell had a baby girl, Bluebell Madonna, in May; and Bunton is expecting her first child in August. Mother-of-three Beckham is moving to Beverly Hills on July 12 ahead of her NBC show airing four days later. Referring to the baby boom, Beckham added, “We will definitely have a huge creche on tour.”
