Geri Halliwell recalls learning that her father had died while she was studying Hamlet: “It awakened my own mortality.”
Geri Halliwell has spoken about the emotional impact of her father’s death when she was a teenager, saying it “woke me to my own mortality”.
The singer’s father, Laurence, died of a heart attack in 1993, just a year before Halliwell joined the Spice Girls.
In a new interview, Halliwell, 51, opened up about her love of books, adding that she hopes to one day return to education and study English literature.
Halliwell said the last literary work she studied was hamlet When she went to school, she “ironically” learned that her father had died.
William Shakespeare hamlet It centers on the titular prince of Denmark and his emotional torment when his uncle kills his father and marries his mother.
“They pulled me out of English class and said my father was dead, which was so ironic,” she said The Sunday Times.
“It made me suddenly aware of my own mortality. Before a parent dies, a person stands between you and your own death. It woke me up. I call it death energy.”
Halliwell said she believed her father’s death gave her ambition, and sometimes wondered where she would be if he had not died.
Halliwell, pictured in June
(Getty Images)
“It was my gas in the tank,” she said.
In November 2021, Halliwell suffered another loss after her brother Max died suddenly at the age of 54.
A spokesman for Hertfordshire Constabulary confirmed: “Police were called at 9.40am on Wednesday 17 November to report the concern [the] A man’s welfare at a residential property in Berkhamsted.
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“Officials were at the scene along with the East of England Ambulance Service. The man was located and taken to hospital for treatment, where he later sadly passed away.”
According to reports at the time, Halliwell was abroad in the Middle East with her husband, Christian Horner, at the time of her brother’s death.
A rep for the musician confirmed: “As you can imagine, this is a difficult time and we ask that you respect the family’s privacy at this time.”