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In 1996, you almost saw her face all over teen magazines, perfume ads, and billboards. She almost made it to the top of the Billboard charts. She almost starred in a full-length feature movie. And she almost dated David Beckham’s less attractive, less athletic friend.
But instead, Stephanie Balderton is the most unfamous person you almost knew.
Passed over. Rejected. Cut. The last woman out. The un-Spice Girl.
This is how it all happened.
When pop boy bands started to light up the charts, Virgin Records tried to bottle some more of that lightning. So, they turned to the fairer sex. “Our target was to find a pop supergroup with more estrogen than Nick Carter and bigger cans than Joey Fatone,” said Dom Popsquotch, a talent ambassador for Virgin.
Popsquotch traveled throughout the entire United Kingdom, looking for edgy females with a little extra bite. An assortment pack of gals, of different colors and types and sizes. Spicy little numbers who could (kind of) sing for their supper. “They didn’t have to be good or nothin’,” said Popsquotch. “Just nice figures ‘n faces, really. We’ve got the best producers and sound mixers in the world. But you can’t sell ugly.”
He found the blonde one. The black one. The tomboy. The smokin’ hot one. But they were still missing a little extra kick.
“I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew I hadn’t found it yet,” Popsquotch said. After a year of searching, his girl group grew impatient—were they putting their lives on hold for nothing? And even more so, Virgin grew impatient. The record company’s executives worried that other recording labels had his same idea. Their girls had to move first, so as not to be labeled second-rate copycats.
The mandate from Virgin was clear. Expand the search.
“At that point, I was open to nearly ev’rything,” Popsquotch recalled. And that’s when he started considering the fatties and uglies.
And that’s when he met Stephanie Balderton, AKA Pumpkin Spice.
Balderton had been working in a small town spice factory, alongside Popsquotch’s girls, who had picked up some shifts to make ends meet before their long-awaited big break. The Mels (B and C) had mentioned meeting a nice girl with “the voice of an angel” to Popsquotch.
Popsquotch met Balderton after work one day, hoping to add the last piece to this year-long puzzle. As advertised, she sang like an angel. How unfortunate, though, she was a rather unsightly young woman, with clammy skin and greasy orange hair. And Balderton was more than just chubby. She carried extra weight like a packing mule.
“If nothing else, at least she had enormous baps, innit?” said Popsquotch. “But I thought her looks might make the girls more relatable to young fans. Fink of the message, yeah? You can be anyfing you want, even if you’re plug-ugly.”
It was all in the marketing.
Before selling Balderton to fans, he’d have to sell her to the execs at Virgin Records. “I asked the girls, ‘What’s orange and fat and shiny?’ and four of them pointed at Stephanie. But Stephanie said, ‘A pumpkin.’”
They decided to call her Pumpkin Spice.
But in 1995, that wasn’t a thing. Pumpkin spice was no one’s favorite drink or scented candle. It was confusing. When Popsquotch introduced the completed group to Virgin’s execs, they warned him it wouldn’t stick with fans.
And that was the end of that.
Because serendipitously or tragically—depending whose side you’re on—the next day, Geri Halliwell walked into the studio, wearing a Union Jack flag-emblazoned vinyl suit. She was loud. She was audacious. She was the missing piece—the redheaded bombshell that Popsquotch knew the group needed.
And though she couldn’t exactly sing, Halliwell’s voice held an oddly catchy scream-squawk that Popsquotch found unique and alluring.
That very same day, Popsquotch called Balderton into his office to let her down. “I apologized and told her, ‘We can’t have more than one redhead, Stephanie. It’d confuse our fans.’ Becoming a fatty pop star is a tough business.”
Face to Face with Pumpkin Spice
“GINGER SPICE? More like ‘gina spice, innit? She’s the vaggiest of ‘em all, innit?”
All it takes is one mention of Geri Halliwell’s name and suddenly Balderton’s face turns upside down, every part that was at first expressive and happy turns bellicose and furrowed and kind of stricken, almost like she’s been hit with a Dementor’s Kiss.
“Wiff her phony red hair, she lookin’ like Ronald McDonald, innit? Takin’ my spot on the stage wiff her boxy platform shoes. Go on wiff your big forehead, I say.”
Her rant continued with some insults that didn’t seem exactly real. Moffaty-buffer, pink squid, wainscoting dolly-wopper, a pigeon on the Thames. The words don’t make literal sense, but the sounds do.
Pumpkin went on to describe the life she didn’t have, the parties she never attended, the career that eluded her. She was bitter, but sweet.
But it’s hard to feel bad for her, really. Because in the end, her revenge is served hot and cold, in 26,696 Starbucks locations globally.
After being left out of the Spice Girls, and vowing never to listen to any of their songs, Balderton holed up in her studio apartment, leaving only to go to work at the local spice factory. For 7 years, she created and refined an inspired recipe that would become her claim to fame.
In 2003, she sold it to Starbucks for an undisclosed amount. And though she shared many of her personal details and feelings on the matter, she still won’t budge on the numbers.
“I’ll tell you what. It’s a higher number than that c*nty Ginger can count to.”
It’s the empire of a woman scorned. A woman dead set on proving her worth. On proving the value and validity of Pumpkin Spice.
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