Forced threesomes, physical abuse: Former Spice Girl Mel B takes husband to court

Former Spice Girl Mel B has accused her estranged husband of years, Stephen Belafonte, of emotional and physical abuse, according to new court documents obtained by People.com.

Mel B filed for a restraining order against her husband of 10 years on Monday. “When something good would happen for me, he would beat me down to let me know that he was in charge,” she claims.

Mel B aka Melanie Brown, husband Stephen Belafonte at the OK! Magazine and BritWeek celebrate the Oscars party at the London Hotel in West Hollywood. (Shutterstock)

In 2010, Mel B claims, Belafonte hired a German exchange student named Lorraine as their child’s nanny. He would often pit the women against each other based on looks and soon developed a sexual relationship with Lorraine. “Over the course of some three years, I recently learned that (Belafonte) paid Lorraine in excess of $300,000 for alleged nanny services,” she claims.

She goes on to allege that in 2014, Lorraine got pregnant, and Belafonte paid for her to get an abortion. “I was shocked and in disbelief,” Brown (Mel) states in the declaration. “(He) used money earned by me to pay for Lorraine’s abortion, and he used money earned by me to pay for Lorraine’s hotel stay while she recuperated from the procedure.”

Brown continues to say that during their relationship, Belafonte would force her to participate in threesomes with strange women, and when she complained about not wanting to go through with them, he would threaten to release private tapes of them engaged in previous encounters.

“(He) demanded that I participate in sexual intercourse with him and random women that he brought back to our hotel rooms.”

“If I discovered these recordings, I would beg him to delete them,” she claims. “These tapes represent yet another hallmark in (Belafonte’s) scheme to manipulate and control in that these tapes and others became the subject of his threats in the event I should ever leave the relationship.”

“I have lived the past decade in fear that (Belafonte) would release intimate videos of me that would embarrass me and damage my reputation and my career. Once [he] made the threat of releasing videos, it became impossible to say no to him, giving him complete control.”

Brown then recounts a story of domestic abuse that took place in 2014. “My lip and lower portion of my face was swollen to the point that I had to be filmed from a particular angle so that the injury would not show up on tape,” Brown claims in the documents.

Mel B began dating Belafonte in 2007. They married after five months, in a secret ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada, and gave birth to their daughter, Madison Brown Belafonte, in September 2011. Brown filed for divorce from Belafonte in March of this year, though they were reported to be separated by December 2016.

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First Published: Apr 05, 2017 15:36 IST