As if the Spice Girls reunion wasn't going badly enough already, now Emma Bunton has fallen over, knackered her ankle and has to hobble around on crutches.
It's been reported that Emma Bunton – also known as Infantile Spice by her young fans – stacked it onstage during a Spice Girls show in Las Vegas and now she's in a cast. But don't you worry, London-based Spice Girls fans – Emma Bunton has vowed that by the time the Spice Girls' world tour hits London she'll have recovered completely, even if she has to spend 13 hours chewing off her bad leg – cauterising the wound with a red-hot travel iron as she goes – and replacing it with one big penny farthing wheel, a bit like those dogs who go round hospitals have.
Yes, that's actually what Emma Bunton said.
No it isn't.
For all the fanfares and million-dollar sofa-designing contracts that the Spice Girls received when they announced their reunion, things haven't been going as well as expected. Their comeback single Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) is officially the worst-performing Children In Need single of all time – even overbearing cockney git Shane Ritchie did better with a cover of a Wham song – plus hardly a day goes by without seeing pictures of the Spice Girls performing to half-empty arenas. And the few who do turn up don't have anything more constructive to do than slag off Victoria Beckham.
Meanwhile Victoria Beckham is doing nothing to dispel those pregnancy rumours, Mel B has been called a lesbian and if we see that bloody Tesco advert one more time we're going to do a dirty protest right on top of the cheese counter. How could the Spice Girls' comeback get any worse?
Well Emma Bunton could fall over and bust up her ankle for a start.
Wait a minute, that's exactly what's happened. Yesterday the Spice Girls turned up at Los Angeles International Airport to unveil a new plane – called Spice One, presumably because it's always half-empty and a crowd of desperate touts try and sell you unwanted tickets for 10p in the departure lounge – and Emma Bunton turned up on crutches.
When asked why she was hobbling around like cartoon Victorian orphan, Emma offered the following explanation:
"I had a tumble on stage and unfortunately I have sprained my ankle, so I'm hobbling around on crutches. But I'm sure to make a speedy recovery and see you all at the O2."
A tumble on stage during a Spice Girls comeback concert? Well, there can't have been any witnesses so we'll have to accept that excuse as fact. But it does seem a little bit fishy – perhaps Geri Halliwell attacked Bunton's ankle with a ball-hammer one night out of jealousy that Emma has been on more dance-based reality TV shows than her. Maybe we'll never know.
But at least Emma has promised fans that she'll be back to her old self by the time the Spice Girls reunion train stops in London. It's a weight off our minds, that's for sure – the Spice Girls wouldn't be the Spice Girls without a semi-anonymous blonde woman dressed as a child standing at the back and mimbling her mousey backing vocals for a couple of words per song.
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