Mel B and Nicola Coughlan traded compliments on Friday night's Late Late Show as they admitted they are huge fans of each other.
The Spice Girl and Derry Girl were both guests on the show, with Mel B appearing first before being joined by Nicola, as host Patrick Kielty welcomed her back to Ireland.
"I’ve always enjoyed Dublin so much," she said, when Patrick noted that her last time here was for the Spice Girls gig in Croke Park in 2019. "When we first started rehearsing for our first ever tour, in 1996, we stayed at the K Club.
"I’d a lovely time. It was posh. It was very posh indeed."
Patrick then noted that The Spice Girls’ Stop video was shot in Stoneybatter, on Dublin’s Northside, before showing a clip. Laughing, Mel recalled: "No one knew who we were or what we were doing."
Patrick then asked if Mel B realised that at the height the group’s fame, that The Spice Girls changed the lives of so many girls and women.
"I don’t think so," she replied. "We were 17, 18, 19 years old at he time. Five girls just all on a mission to spread Girl Power at a time when it was just all about boy bands. So many doors were slammed in our faces. 'Who do you think you are? Girl bands are not going to happen.’
"We were like, ‘Yes they are!’ We’d sing in the car parks of Simon Cowell, we’d wait outside record producer places and houses - kind of like stalker-ish - and go, ‘Please work with us’ and everyone was like, ‘No’. But we kept on keeping on."
Mel B was keen to emphasise that while the message The Spice Girls spread was pro-female, it wasn’t anti-male, as might have been misconstrued.
"We don’t hate men, we just love supporting women," she insisted. "We’re five girls that look completely different, and we all have something in common. Which is to spread support for other women.
"And we adore each other and we all had a passion and a drive to write our own music, to dress exactly how we wanted to dress, and I will still own my leopard print until the day I die."
She also spoke about her autobiographical book Brutally Honest, where she told about her "ten-year, very abusive marriage". As she told Patrick, "Abuse can happen to anyone. You don’t find abuse, the abuser finds you. No matter who you are or how much money you have."
As for a Spice Girls comeback, she told Patrick: "Us five have been working together and something will be announced pretty soon - and that’s all I’m allowed to say!"
Nicola Coughlan then came on and Mel B turned from pop superstar to fawning fan. Without blinking, Nicola admitted she was equally in awe of Mel B.
"What you did for young girls," she told her. "You were so inspirational. You made young women want to be independent and strong."
Patrick then showed a video of a very young Nicola miming and dancing to The Spice Girls. "It’s all beginning to make sense now," he said.
Then Patrick played the Derry Girls clip where the gang dressed up as The Spice Girls.
Not to be outdone in the mutual admiration stakes, Mel B told Nicola: "I absolutely adore you."
Once the love was evenly spread, Nicola told Patrick about her upcoming show Big Mood, on Channel 4.
"It’s a show written by one of my best friends, Camilla Whitehill. I’ve known her 15 years, we went to drama school together. She is an amazingly talented writer and we always wanted to work together.
"But then, in our twenties, we did nothing. We were just like a struggling writer/actor pair.
"It’s a show about friendship, about bipolar disorder. It stars Lydia West, who we all know from It’s a Sin. She’s amazing. It’s very, very funny but it deals with a dark subject matter. And, yeah, I’m super, super proud of it.
"We filmed it all in seven weeks. It was like a crazy, quick process."
The Late Late Show, 9.35pm Fridays on RTÉ One
