Emma Bunton met her 'soulmate' at the height of her fame. It took them 23 years to marry.

When Emma Bunton saw Jade Jones for the first time, she knew he was the one for her. 

“I fell in love with Jade at first sight,” she told Express. “He was sitting across a table from me and I actually said to him, ‘You’re coming with me.’ I made the move – very Girl Power.”

It was 1998, and Bunton was ruling the world with the Spice Girls, while Jones was the lead singer of boy band Damage. Bunton knew Jones was her “soulmate”, but it would be another 23 years before they tied the knot.

Bunton, better known to the world as Baby Spice, spent her teens living with her karate instructor mum Pauline, after her milkman dad Trevor ended the marriage. A former child model who starred in toothpaste commercials, she had her sights set on acting. She’d had a tiny role as a teenage mugger in EastEnders and got down to the final audition for the role of Bianca Jackson in the same soap before losing out to Patsy Palmer. It was “really upsetting”, but as she told Metro, sometimes there’s a reason for missing out.

"The very next week after failing that audition I met the guys who put together the Spice Girls."

Back then, the all-girl group was called Touch. Bunton was asked to join Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown and Melanie Chisholm, taking the place of Michelle Stephenson, whose mother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Bunton, then just 18, spent a week in the house that the other girls shared, to see how they all got along.

Watch: Emma Bunton talks about her upcoming tour, Emma Bunton and Friends. Story continues after video.

"It was a bit hard because I was so nervous, and I thought, 'What if they don't like me?'" Emma explained in the documentary Spice Girls: How Girl Power Changed Britain. “But luckily we got on really well and they liked me and took me on.”

The five girls worked hard, learning to write songs and rehearsing. They dumped their original management, signed with Simon Fuller, and, by then known as the Spice Girls, eventually got a deal with Virgin Records. In 1996, they released 'Wannabe', which they had co-written. It became the all-time biggest-selling single by an all-female group. 

Girl Power had arrived. 

By the time the Spice Girls released 'Wannabe', Bunton had a boyfriend – a dental technician called Mark. After they split, he sold the story of their relationship to a tabloid, going into detail about them kissing and making love. 

“We spent four years together, and I felt he put the whole thing on display,” Bunton told Gear. “When we broke up, I thought I’d always have a little part in my heart for him, but that’s g-a-w-n.”

The betrayal made her wary of opening up about her relationships. 

“When your other love life’s been splashed all over the papers, you tend to hold back a little bit more,” she said. 

When Bunton met Jones, in 1998, he was 19, three years younger than her. Bunton told the By The Light Of The Moon podcast that their relationship became “very intense very quickly”.

“Both of us knew we wanted to be together,” she said. “We're soulmates. [But] it hit us that we were so young and both of us haven't done everything.”

After a while, the couple took a break.  

Bunton, like all the Spice Girls, was linked in the tabloids to numerous celebrities. There were stories that she was having an affair with the group’s manager, Simon Fuller, but she denied it, telling Gear she’d never go out with a man with dyed black hair and a sunbed tan. 

She was also linked with Leonardo DiCaprio, but insisted that he was “a bit boy-y” for her.

"I go for real lads, which is probably why I've had trouble," she told The People. “I go for quite dark men too, with olive skin, and I quite like men in trackies and trainers."

For a while, she was reported to be dating soccer player Rio Ferdinand. But although the tabloids desperately wanted the two of them to be the next Posh and Becks, that never eventuated. 

As for a romance with Justin Timberlake, they definitely got close. 

“We hung out and partied a bit and he was very sweet,” Bunton told interviewer Jonathan Ross.

By 2004, Bunton had a successful solo career. She and Jones reunited, and Bunton believes the break did them good. 

“It gave us time to grow as people and when we came back together it was amazing,” she said.

The couple had decided back in 1998, when they first got together, that they wanted to have children. But Bunton had been diagnosed with endometriosis, and didn’t know whether it would stop her from becoming pregnant.

“That nearly broke me,” she told Stella magazine about the diagnosis. “I knew I had the right partner, and that I wanted to be a mum. I didn’t give up hope.”

Emma Bunton with Jade Jones, 1999. Image: Getty.

While competing in Strictly Come Dancing, Bunton fell pregnant. In 2007, she gave birth to son Beau. 

“We’re over the moon,” a proud Jones told the media afterwards.

Four months later, Bunton was on stage performing in the long-awaited Spice Girls reunion tour. 

“It was tough and, looking back now, even though I had incredible support from Jade and my mother, my body was not ready for it,” she told Metro while promoting her book on parenthood, Mama You Got This.

“We had wonderful costumes, but I was breastfeeding and didn’t feel at my sexiest. There was a lot of Spanx going on!”

In 2008, Bunton told Closer she and Jones didn’t feel the need to get married.

"We've been rumoured to be engaged about 20 times, but we don't need a wedding to justify our relationship.”

However, they did get engaged in 2011, just a few months before the birth of their second son, Tate. By then, Jones – who Bunton described to The Guardian as “the most calm and understanding person I’ve ever met” – had changed careers to become a chef.

Jones didn’t completely give up singing, though. In 2019, he and Bunton recorded a duet, 'You’re All I Need To Get By', for her fourth solo album. Bunton told Metro that being in the studio together was “quite romantic”. 

"We were hugging and kissing and the producers were like, ‘Can you just get a room?'"

By then, the couple had been together, on and off, for two decades, and been through what Bunton describes as “the world’s longest engagement”. When she spoke to The Sun, she was sounding a bit warmer towards the idea of marriage.

“One day I know we would love a wedding and we want the kids to be there,” she said.  

As she explained, she, and Jones had grown up together. 

"We have a lot of respect for each other and he really supports me and everything I do. Jade is more patient than me, 100 per cent. He is the patient one.”

In July last year, Bunton surprised her fans by sharing a wedding photo on Instagram.

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"It’s been a long time coming – 23 years actually – but we had the most perfect day," she told fans on her Heart radio show. "We didn’t take our eyes off each other. It was very romantic."

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.