Second-time lucky?

Scary Spice and Eddie Murphy plan to get married next month

It takes a lot to make an eyelid bat in Hollywood. After all, bizarre behaviour goes hand-in-hand with star status in Tinseltown.

But the latest Los Angeles love affair has stunned even the most jaded observers of this city which specialises in make-believe.

Rumours that the actor Eddie Murphy and the former Spice Girl Mel B are actually getting married next month seem just too fantastical to be true. (That’s right) Murphy, the jive-talking superstar, and Mel, the superannuated Spice Girl, want to spend their lives together.

When stories of their curious courtship began circulating four months ago, the relationship was initially dismissed as a publicity stunt. The union or rather, the column inches it generated appeared to suit both their needs.

‘They met at a party in June and hit it off right away,’ says a friend. ‘But no one really thought it was going anywhere.’ But since then, their relationship has become increasingly serious.

Indeed, although Melanie was spotted cosying up to an unknown man in West London’s Electric Cinema recently, the couple’s relationship rapidly seems to be evolving into the sort of celebrity coupledom typified by Tom Cruise and his wife Katie Holmes, or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie - couples so inseparable they are jokingly referred to as TomKat and Brangelina respectively. Could Mel B and Eddie Murphy morph permanently into ‘Meleddie’?