Spice Girls say sorry for cutting tour short

02/06/2008 2:00 PM, Reuters


The Spice Girls said sorry to disappointed fans on Wednesday for cutting short their reunion tour and denied it was hit by bitter in-fighting.

They have cancelled concerts in China, South Africa, Australia and Argentina. The tour that reunited the British "Girl Power" group in a blaze of publicity is now to end in Toronto on February 26.

Emma, Geri, Mel B, Melanie C and Victoria blamed "family and personal commitments" for the abrupt change of plan after completing a series of money-spinning concerts in Britain and the United States.

On Wednesday they put on their official Web site a one-minute "apology video" to angry fans.

Victoria, married to soccer star David Beckham, said "Our kids need to go back to school and we always said our families are our priorities. Sorry we haven't got to see everybody."

Mel C said: "There has been a lot of rubbish in the media over the last few days so we wanted you to hear it from the horse's mouth. We're very sorry not to be able to get to all the places we wanted to."

In the video, the quintet pretended to fight each other before Mel B screamed: "We hate each other? Are you kidding? We love each other!"

The Spice Girls were one of the biggest pop acts of the 1990s, selling 35 million albums worldwide with such catchy hits as "Wannabe" and "Say You'll Be There."

(Reporting by Paul Majendie; editing by Sami Aboudi)