Geri Halliwell recalls learning her father died while studying Hamlet: ‘It woke me up to my own mortality’

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

Geri Halliwell has spoken about the emotional impact of her father dying when she was a teenager, saying it “woke me up to my own mortality”.

The singer’s father Laurence died from 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 hoped to return to education one day and study English Literature.

Halliwell said that the last literary work she studied was Hamlet when she was at school, during which she “ironically” learnt that her father had died.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet centres 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 the English class to say my father was dead, which was so ironic,” she told The Sunday Times.

“It suddenly woke me up to my own mortality. Before a parent dies, there’s a person standing between you and your own death. It woke me up. I call it death energy.”

Halliwell said that she believes her father’s death gave her ambition, and sometimes wondered where she would be if he had not died.

“It was my gas in the tank,” she said.

In November 2021, Halliwell experienced another loss after her brother Max died suddenly aged 54.

A Hertfordshire Constabulary spokesperson confirmed: “Police were called at 9.40am on Wednesday 17 November to report the concern for [the] welfare of a man at a residential property in Berkhamsted.

“Officers, along with the East of England Ambulance Service, attended the scene. The man was located and taken to hospital for treatment, where he sadly later died.”

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 spokesperson for the musician confirmed: “As you can imagine this is a difficult time and we would ask that you respect the family’s privacy at this time.”