BECOMING VICTORIA BECKHAM

She was ridiculed as a singer and critics said she'd never amount to much, but as Posh turns 50 it's clear she's the one who's having the last laugh

- NICI DE WET

SHE'LL never last, people said she isn't talented enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, charismatic enough. David will get tired of her when the Spice Girls fizzle out. She just doesn't have what it takes to go the distance.

Yeah, right.

Victoria Beckham may have been regarded as the least gifted of the hot young things who became the world's biggest girl band - but what does that matter anymore? Forget Baby with her pigtails and cutesy smile. Forget Ginger with her Union Jack bodysuits and strutty dance moves.

Forget Scary with her in-your-face attitude and manic microphone moments. Forget Sporty with her banging bod and good voice.

Posh is the most successful of them all and the critics who once wrote her off are watching as she laughs all the way to the bank.

VB is now turning 50 and continues to be a global force in the fashion and beauty business.

In July she'll celebrate 25 years of marriage to a man who's clearly as crazy about her now as he was two-and-a-half decades ago.

Failed music career? Well, yes. Projects that never really took off? Certainly. But Victoria has spiced up her life by overcoming challenges, knowing what she wants and going out and grabbing it.

In the words of the chorus to the Spice Girls hit Viva Forever, she is everlasting like the sun. And to think she was once a spotty teenager with no friends and a head full of hang ups.

SPICE OF LIFE 

fter school Victoria studied dance and modelling at a theatre arts college - and then in 1993 an ad appeared in a trade magazine for a "manufactured" female pop group that would change everything.

The plan was to create a girl band to rival the successful boy bands that were all the rage at the time. Four hundred girls turned up for auditions - but Geri Halliwell, Mel Brown, Mel Chisholm, Emma Bunton and Victoria made it through all the rounds.