2024 marks 30 years of the Spice Girls, and to celebrate, England is marking the occasion in a major way. Mel B appeared on the Monday (Jan. 8) episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and shared that the girl group’s three-decade anniversary comes with a special royal perk.
“It is 30 years and I just realize this because we just released our stamps from the Royal Mail. Usually it’s the queen’s face that’s on the stamp. It went from the queen, to the king and then the Spice Girls have their own stamps,” Scary Spice told the host.
Despite the stamps marking a major achievement for the 48-year-old and the rest of the Spice Girls, her children were not aware of the magnitude of the honor. “My kids are like, ‘What’s a stamp? Why do we need them?’” she joked, imitating her children’s voices. “We feel very privileged and very honored. I’m gonna save them forever and ever, amen, like all my old Spice Girl outfits that no one can touch.”
After Mel B was shown a picture of her daughter Phoenix Chi Gulzar dressed in her old Spice Girls outfits, the singer shared a bit of the history behind the looks, as well as the group’s humble beginnings. “Spice Girls, we’re very much a homegrown band. We styled ourselves and we’d do our own music,” she recalled to Fallon. “We begged producers and co-writers to work with us on the promise that when we’re rich and famous, we’d pay you back. Our journey was tough and we were broke. We dressed ourselves, so when I see that, that was 50 cents, that top.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Mel B — whose real name Melanie Brown — spoke about the series of event that led up to her receiving her MBE honor — Member of the Order of the British Empire — which she received for advocating for domestic violence victims.
“To get an MBE, they do a lot of background checks on you and it’s all about what you’ve contributed to society,” she explained. “I was thinking I’m never going to get an MBE, maybe I will as a Spice Girl because I’m a Spice Girl through and through and girl power.”
The pop star continued, “The MBE arrives in this envelope that gets chauffeur driven to your house and the chauffeur has to hand the envelope to you, but I wasn’t in, so my mum was in … she goes, ‘Oh my god you’re a royal highness! What have you’ve done?’ Then I opened it and it was like, ‘You’ve been awarded and honored an MBE for all the work and awareness that you do for domestic violence and to create support for people that have gone through that.’”
Watch Mel B’s on Fallon below:
