She made a brutally fast exit from the Spice Girls in 1998 – dumping them in the middle of a world tour, the announcement made, somewhat ruthlessly, by her lawyer.
But there is no prospect of history repeating itself when it comes to Geri Halliwell’s marriage to Christian Horner.
The turbulent events of last year, which include the leak of a tranche of racy messages apparently from Christian to another woman, have been airbrushed from history, leaving the couple to motor on, spotlessly.
To recap, Christian was ousted from Formula One team Red Bull in the wake of allegations he had behaved ‘inappropriately’ to a female colleague. He denied the allegations and was cleared by an investigation.
The colleague appealed, and, after a second investigation, this appeal was dismissed.
But it didn’t save his spot at the company – a power struggle at the top and a bad run of results led to Christian being sacked in July.
This week, it emerged that he’s received a whopping £80million pay off from Red Bull, and, according to the terms of the agreement, may be able to go back to work in the sport as early as next spring.
Indeed, everyone expects him to roar back once the enforced break is over, and for Geri to once again assume her role as the Queen of Formula One.
Geri Halliwell has been married to the former Formula One Red Bull team principal for ten years
Christian was ousted from his Formula One team in the wake of allegations he had behaved ‘inappropriately’ to a female colleague
So what will he do in the intervening time?
Well, for now, Christian has taken his wife for a belated honeymoon in Scotland – a full ten years after their wedding.
Friends say that these are actually good times for the couple, and that Christian is highly appreciative of his ‘very supportive wife’.
There was never a serious possibility that she would dump him, but apparently he felt a ‘flick of the whip’ from a ‘very angry’ Ginger Spice when the scandal erupted.
A source close to Geri says: ‘She has taken a leaf out of the Victoria Beckham playbook, in which you ignore the scandal and think beautiful thoughts. That’s one of her mantras – she will actually say: “I am thinking beautiful thoughts.” She shuts out the noise of the world.
‘In private, she flicked the whip, just as Victoria did over the Rebecca Loos scandal; she was very angry. There was a jab to his weak spot, which is about status.
‘Remember that she changed her name to Geri Halliwell for a nanosecond in one social media post. That was the sign.
‘But Geri will never let go of her husband. He has been her introduction to the society she wants to move in and into a new reality.’
The source adds: ‘She always seemed to hanker after that world. Look at her romance with [posh banker] Henry Beckwith. He was her serious romance before Christian. She’s a girl from Watford whose dad was a used car dealer and whose mum was a cleaning woman, but she likes Hooray Henrys with lots of money.
‘She’s got what she wanted. The world she lives in now is very Jilly Cooper.’
This much is true – only a week ago she and Christian were helping James Matthews, who is married to Pippa Middleton, to celebrate his 50th birthday with a big party at his home in Bucklebury, Berkshire. Pippa’s sister Kate and brother-in-law Prince William were among the guests.
Home for the Halliwell-Horners is an idyllic 15th century manor house on the Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire border.
It boasts a helipad, boating lake, orangery, indoor pool and stables, and certainly measures up to Geri’s desired ‘lady of the manor’ style. She and Christian own a number of racehorses, which are named after her solo hits. Lift Me Up, for example, ran at Cheltenham this year.
The cost of keeping, training and racing horses is ‘enormous’, according to friends of the former Spice Girl. ‘It is the quintessential rich man’s hobby, and Christian bankrolls it all.’ They seem to greatly enjoy the sport, and the social scene that goes with it.
A source close to Geri says: ‘She has taken a leaf out of the Victoria Beckham playbook’
The couple share son Monty, now eight. Geri’s daughter Bluebell, known as Blue, is 19, and at university where she is reading English literature. She was born after Geri’s fleeting romance with writer Sacha Gervasi, but Christian has formally adopted her.
He also has a daughter, Olivia, by former partner Beverly Allen, who died this year from cancer.
The flames still burn brightly for the couple after ten years of marriage. I’m told that Geri is in the habit of following Christian from room to room at home, and that the password for the wi-fi is ‘wonderful husband’. She will gush about how handsome he is.
Their romance started when perennial romantic disaster-area Geri was 41; they were married when she was 42. She said in an interview: ‘I was a late developer. I’m incredibly grateful to be in a really loving relationship.’
Many were surprised when she travelled to Bahrain for the Grand Prix last year just a few days after the allegations of Christian’s inappropriate behaviour broke.
She looked strained in her trademark cream outfit, but clasped his hand firmly.
The truth is that Geri has always hung on to him very tightly.
Former racing driver Christian split from long-term partner Allen in March 2014, six months after the birth of their daughter.
Allen and Christian had been an item for 14 years and they lived together in Northamptonshire along with Allen’s two children from a previous relationship. They had seemed happily settled, especially once baby Olivia came along.
Christian started dating Geri soon after the break-up, though they’d been introduced a long time before that – in 2009, by former F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone.
In the summer of 2014, Christian’s father Garry and his mother Sara were seen at Wimbledon with Allen, in a clear show of solidarity with her.
In November, a swift eight months after the split, Geri and Christian announced – in The Times of course – that they were to make it official.
‘Mr CEJ Horner OBE and Geri Halliwell. The engagement is announced between Christian, son of Mr and Mrs GM Horner and Geraldine, daughter of the late Mr LF Halliwell and Mrs A Parkinson,’ it ran.
Things were less pukka behind the scenes among the wider family, and Christian’s parents boycotted the wedding.
A source said at the time: ‘They’re very upset by everything that has gone on and feel as though their loyalties are very divided.’ In an interview two years ago, however, Christian said that relations all round were now ‘totally harmonious’ between his former partner and current wife, and indeed the whole family.
His parents are often photographed with him and Geri at race meetings.
Geri’s amazing odyssey from obscurity to fame and fortune began with the sudden death of her father Lawrence, a used car dealer, in 1994.
Soon afterwards she saw an advert in the journal The Stage for girls who could sing and dance to form a band, and the shock of his death fired the starting gun on her ambitions.
At the time, Geri wasn’t especially good at either singing or dancing – she was no graduate of a stage school like Victoria Adams, who’d go onto become Posh – but was keen to escape the dead end of go-go dancing in nightclubs and occasional bits of glamour modelling, which had thus far been her lot.
The group’s debut single in 1996, Wannabe, reached number one in 37 countries while their debut album, Spice, sold more than 23 million copies worldwide the same year and became the best-selling album by a female group in history.
But that spell at the top of the pop world didn’t last. Geri, whose fun-loving persona and iconic image seemed to drive so much of the ‘Girl Power’ juggernaut, left the band in 1998, in the middle of a world tour.
Away from the spotlight, she was struggling with bulimia. Her one-time boyfriend Robbie Williams urged her to seek help, which she did at a clinic in the US state of Arizona.
Professionally, she then focused on launching her solo career, indicating her rebirth by emerging from a giant inflatable vagina at the Brit awards. Geri began to reinvent herself with the help of George Michael, a good friend whom she’d once thought she would marry. (‘My gaydar was completely off.’) George Michael calmed down her sex-bomb image, guiding her towards Armani clothes and a sleek blonde bob.
By the time she married Christian in 2015, she was ready for the biggest transformation yet. Wearing a fully white Phillipa Lepley lace dress, she exchanged vows with him at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, with guests including Amanda Holden, Myleene Klass and former bandmate Emma Bunton.
Since then, she has concentrated mostly on writing children’s books and on her new life as a country lady. She has hopes that her most recent, Rosie Frost And The Falcon Queen, and Rosie Frost: Ice On Fire, will become a TV show or a film.
‘The biggest producer in Hollywood has bought the rights,’ she said this spring. ‘We are looking at the writer to make the scripts.’ However, nothing has been announced.
One friend says: ‘She has a lot of belief in the books, but it feels like she is manifesting the success,’ which is a little unfair, given her latest was a number one bestseller on Amazon.
Meanwhile, negotiations continue over a potential Spice Girls reunion. Victoria Beckham is out for now – she is firmly in her fashion era.
Mel B, Mel C and Emma Bunton would all willingly go on the road, for the right money – but Geri won’t ever think of setting foot on a stage again.
The idea of performing avatars – as with Abba – is still under consideration, with the Spice Girls’ former manager Simon Fuller attempting to make the idea work. Apparently the money to be made from such a project is ‘huge’, which makes it tempting all round.
I’m told: ‘Geri likes to earn money. There have been times when things have been less financially secure than people would imagine, and she likes to have the power that it gives her. She’ll never have as much as Christian, but I imagine that it feels comfortable to have a bit of a balance.’
Watch this space, therefore. For now, however, the couple will no doubt enjoy the remote Scottish countryside, as far away as possible from the glamour – and gossip – of an F1 racetrack.