and for British music. A study conducted by the British Council in 2000 found that the Spice Girls were the second-best-known Britons internationally—only behind then-Prime Minister Tony Blair—and the best-known Britons in Asia. The group were featured in VH1's I Love the '90s and the sequel I Love the '90s: Part Deux; the series covered cultural moments from 1990s with the Spice Girls' rise to fame representing the year 1997, while Halliwell quitting the group represented 1998. In 2006, ten years after the release of their debut single, the Spice Girls were voted the biggest cultural icons of the 1990s with 80 per cent of the votes in a UK poll of 1,000 people carried out for the board game Trivial Pursuit, stating that "Girl Power" defined the decade. The Spice Girls also ranked number ten in the E! TV special, The 101 Reasons the '90s Ruled. Some sources, especially those in the United Kingdom, regard the Spice Girls as gay icons. In a 2007 UK survey of more than 5,000 gay men and women, Beckham placed 12th and Halliwell placed 43rd in a ranking of the top 50 gay icons. Halliwell was the recipient of the Honorary Gay Award at the 2016 Attitude Awards and Chisholm was given the "Celebrity Ally" award at the 2021 British LGBT Awards. In a 2005 interview, Bunton attributed their large gay following to the group's fun-loving nature, open-mindedness and their love of fashion and dressing up. The LGBTQ magazine Gay Times credits the Spice Girls as having been "ferocious advocates of the community" throughout their whole career. According to Bunton, the LGBTQ community was a big influence on the group's music. A desire to be more inclusive also led the group to change the lyrics in "2 Become 1"; the lyric "Any deal that we endeavour/boys and girls feel good together" appears in their debut album but was changed to "Once again if we endeavour/love will bring us back together" for the single and music video release. Portrayal in the media The Spice Girls became media icons in Great Britain and a regular feature of the British press. During the peak of their worldwide fame in 1997, the paparazzi were constantly seen following them everywhere to obtain stories and gossip about the group, such as a supposed affair between Emma Bunton and manager Simon Fuller, or constant split rumours which became fodder for