Geri Halliwell: 'Fame is never healthy'

Geri Halliwell has shared her concern about the "extraordinary power" of celebrity and its potentially destructive qualities.

The former Spice Girl admitted that she considered retiring after coming to the realisation that the perks and privileges of fame were encouraging a reckless lifestyle.

She told the Sunday Mirror: "Celebrity has some amazing advantages, of course it does. You're given an extraordinary power. It's a door-opener. I might not have to queue for things. I can get a table easily, people are nicer to me in the butcher's. There's a familiarity.

"But at one stage it did get a bit too much. Being a celebrity, you can remain a child for ever, almost. You get away with more, you can get too pampered and it's not healthy. I went through a stage of not having a clue who I was.

"I did think about giving it all up and just moving away somewhere remote. But people don't realise that once you turn fame on, you can't switch it off."

The 38-year-old, who struggled to maintain a consistent weight after finding fame, also insisted that she had worked hard to get healthy since the arrival of daughter Bluebell.

"God, I've been there and done it all… not been body-confident, thought 'My boobs are too big, too small, I'm too small, too tall, too skinny, too wide, too slim, too fat…'.

"But when I had Bluebell, I knew I had to set a healthy example... I've learnt that if I tell myself I'm not allowed something I binge on it later.

"Now, I can just have one - or maybe two - slices of cake, whereas before, [when I had bulimia], I would have the whole cake."

Halliwell previously explained how she channelled grief over her father's death into her career.