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MANILA, Philippines – Sporty Spice wants to tell you what she really, really, really wants – for you to catch Asia’s Got Talent.
Melanie Chisholm, better known as Melanie C, tries her hand at judging talents from Asia on the first season of Asia’s Got Talent, another show from the Got Talent franchise. Best friends and TV personalities Marc Nelson and Rovilson Fernandez will be hosting the show.
She joins record producer and composer David Foster, Vanness Wu, and Indonesian singer Anggun as the panel of judges for the show.
“Actually, I haven’t met any of the other guys before working on the show together, and we get on great. There’s a really good chemistry, and I think it’s wonderful that we’re all performers and we’re all quite experienced, you know? We’ve been very successful in lots of territories and it gives us a good grounding to be able to critique and to give advice to the artists and contestants on the show,” she shared.
The former Spice Girl spoke with reporters on juggling motherhood, the impact of the Spice Girls on women today, and her adventure on the reality show.
Spice Girls and girl power today
Melanie C, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton, Melanie B, and Victoria Adams broke into the 90s music scene as girl group The Spice Girls. Posh (Victoria), Ginger (Geri), Baby (Emma), Sporty (Melanie C), and Scary (Melanie B) were the faces of 90s girl power, right about the same time groups like the Backstreet Boys and Westlife were at the height of their fame.
She said she remains thankful for her experience with the Spice Girls, from touring around the world to receiving many awards for their work in the business. “I feel so lucky. In fact, everyday is a dream now sometimes. I’m just so proud of everything that I’ve achieved with the Spice Girls.”
Although the girl group stopped making music together, the impact their group had on women was – according to Melanie – the biggest takeaway she got from her stint. She was recently at the BRIT Awards with Baby Spice Emma Bunton.
“I often meet people, whether it be journalists or people from different businesses, and you know they all said they looked up to the Spice Girls when they were growing up, and gave them the confidence to go on and achieve the things they’ve wanted to achieve as a woman. I just think that out of everything that we did as a band, that’s probably the most important.”
But the burning question still remained: will the Spice Girls ever have another reunion? “I don’t know if there will be a Spice Girls reunion. We have so short reunions – we love to get together and our children together but we don’t have any plans at the moment to perform together again.”
Project Melanie C: her solo career and motherhood
Currently, she’s been focusing on her solo career, having released more than 4 albums… and counting. She told Rappler that a new album’s in the works, which she started on last year.
“Yeah, absolutely. I’ve started work on my new album last year and I’m continuing to do that in between my time with Asia’s Got Talent. So yeah, I’m very excited to get a new album ready and to get back on the road performing live again.”
She’s also participated in theater, having joined the West End production of Blood Brothers, a musical about fraternal twins separated at birth. Her role as poor mother of 7 children Mrs. Johnstone earned her a Best Actress nomination at the Laurence Olivier Awards.
But aside from show business, what’s kept her on her toes is caring for her daughter Scarlet. She opened up about the difficulties of being a parent, but said that she spends time with her daughter as much as she can when she’s in London.
“Being a parent is really difficult. You know, working as well, it’s hard. I think like all parents you’re constantly trying to get the balance right of working and being at home. Luckily, I spend a lot of time in the UK now and I try to take my daughter to school everyday, and if I’m working in the studio, I try to get home before she goes to bed, so yeah, we spend a lot of time together.”
Melanie C on the Philippine acts
Her judging stint on the debut season of Asia’s Got Talent was a whole new experience for Melanie, who gushed about the cultural diversity and considerable talent of the Asian acts.
Since the talent show was a variety show, the judges were exposed to a lot of different types of performers, from acrobats to singers to magicians and more.
“It’s very exciting. I was over in Singapore and in Malaysia in January. We saw some incredible acts. So diverse. From 15 countries in Asia and there were dancers, acrobats, magicians, singers, musicians – it was such a huge range of acts from traditional stuff and then lots of things I’ve never seen before. So I think myself and the other judges are really excited for the show to air so everyone can see the wonderful things that we saw.”
“You know we have a lot of respect for each other. But you know, we’re all pretty headstrong so if there are particular acts that we don’t feel the same about, we’ll fight for our acts. We’ll defend the acts that we love.[…]I couldn’t wish for a better panel. This is such a strong panel. Everybody really has so many great and interesting things to say,” she aid.
Here’s what she had to say about the performers from the Philippines:
“Yeah, they were so incredible. There were talents from different countries, but I think every act has their strength and there’s so many wonderful singers from the Philippines – we had some really young artists as well so it was really lovely to see some quite young girls with big, powerful voices and lots of those were from the Philippines.”
Although she’s never been to the Philippines, she said her current stint on the show might give her a chance to visit. “No, I’ve never been to the Philippines, which I can’t believe, and I’m hoping that my time here in Asia will enable me to get there and to lots of other places I’ve never visited.[…]This journey, my new Asian adventure is something which is very exciting.”
With the show debuting on March 12, she invites viewers to watch, saying, “I hope the viewers across Asia enjoy the show as much as we’ve been enjoying watching the acts. I also hope that the Asian acts will go international too, and not just in their own territory.” – Rappler.com
Asia’s Got Talent premieres on 12 March at 8.05pm (SG, MY, PH) / 7.05pm (JKT), subsequent episodes air on Thursdays at 8.30pm first and exclusively on AXN. – Rappler.com
Spice Girls stock photo from Shutterstock
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