Spice Girl Geri Halliwell’s bandmates Emma Bunton and Mel C lead the sweet tributes to the ‘beautiful’ singer as she celebrates her 52nd birthday

Geri Halliwell’s Spice Girls bandmates Mel C and Emma Bunton paid tribute to the singer as she celebrated her birthday on Tuesday.

The singer is celebrating her 52nd birthday after a turbulent year that has seen her marriage to Christian Horner in the spotlight.

Christian was accused of sending intimate text messages to a female employee who accused him of “coercive behavior,” but an internal investigation led by an unidentified QC appointed by Red Bull cleared him. Christian strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Since the scandal, Geri and Christian appear to have put it behind them, as they have appeared together on the Grand Prix circuit several times this year.

As Geri celebrates her birthday with family and friends, her former bandmates are sending their well-wishes via social media.

Mel C, 50, shared a throwback to their time in the band to commemorate the day. In the caption, she sent a sweet message to Geri.

Mel suggested they hadn’t made any plans to celebrate her day, writing: ‘Happiest birthday Geri, have a wonderful day, hopefully we’ll get the chance to celebrate together soon. Love you Ginge!’

Emma Bunton also shared her birthday wishes publicly on Tuesday morning, posting a gallery of recent photos of each other.

The singer wrote: ‘Sending all the love to my beautiful friend inside and out on your birthday. Geri, I love you so much.’

One of the snaps was taken earlier this year on Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday, when the band reunited to celebrate her milestone.

She also posted a smiling selfie, along with a giggling photo of them whispering during an appearance on Heart FM.

Luckily, there were no awkward gaffes in these posts, as Geri herself was mercilessly mocked by fans for her gaffe on Mel B’s birthday in May.

Her Instagram account featured a bunch of snaps of the friends together, but a caption error quickly revealed that Geri wasn’t the one who posted the photo.

The images were captioned: ‘I have sent images to Pippa and asked her to adjust this wording where necessary.

‘Congratulations @officialmelb! Hope you have an amazing day! [party emojis].

A few minutes later, the caption was changed, removing the first line. But not before observant fans had noticed and flooded the comments section with rude remarks.

Fans shared: ‘Awesome! That’s a heartfelt birthday post!’; ‘I keep updating but it’s still there’; ‘Caption changed… But we’ve all seen it’; ‘Celebrities who have had their confirmation don’t even post real birthday messages’;

‘When your social media rep does a copy and paste’; ‘*insert warm greeting*’; ‘Is anyone else singing ‘Goodbye, my Friend’?! while reading this?!’

Others were concerned for ‘Pippa’, joking: ‘Hi Pippa, I know you’re gone, you said you were gone but I still feel you here’; ‘When your social media persona copies and pastes something’; ‘Pippa, you’re in danger girl’

‘Sending Pippa lots of love today, she could do with a glass of wine or two’; ‘Friendship never ends… unless Pippa gets involved’; ‘Pippa, I would make it a bit more genuine’; ‘Honey, you need to sort out your social media manager.’

The blunder will undoubtedly do little to ease tensions following their “icy” reunion at Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday party last month.

At the star-studded party, all five Spice Girls gathered to party, but Mel and Geri reportedly greeted each other tensely.

Despite posing for a smiley photo with Victoria, Mel C and Emma Bunton, The sun claimed that Mel and Geri were tense.

Before the reunion, Mel B claimed in an interview that Geri had been lying about her age for years and that she is not 51 at all.

Scary Spice claims that despite them travelling the world together during the band’s heyday, Geri kept her passport close to her at all times and that’s why she ‘still doesn’t know’ how old she is.

After the interview, the two reportedly kept their distance from each other at Victoria’s party, before Mel reportedly offered her an olive branch.

A source told the publication: ‘Mel tried to make amends with Geri at the party but it didn’t go to plan. She laughed it all off but Geri didn’t seem interested in what she had to say and walked away.

‘When they went to take the group photo, Geri stayed as far away from Mel as possible. It was awkward to watch.

‘Geri wanted to be there to celebrate and laugh with everyone, not to talk to Mel about the embarrassing things she said about her.’

Mel previously revealed on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories that she, Geri and she had slept together before.

In the clip, Piers can be seen asking Mel: ‘You came here, to be honest – did you or didn’t you sleep with Geri Halliwell? Did you sleep with her?’

Mel looks shy and tries to dodge the question at first, then says to Piers: ‘Yes. We all slept in the same bed, but not like this, all of us.’

But Piers remained adamant: ‘Is that how you slept with Geri?’ to which Mel smiles and nods, while a shocked Piers asks: ‘Yes? Really?’