SCARY SPICE’S ORDEAL
Singer Melanie Brown, or Mel B to her fans, has won a temporary restraining order and sole custody of her youngest daughter after she claimed her estranged husband subjected her to years of abuse.
The judge's order was issued Monday after the former Spice Girl filed a sworn declaration stating Stephen Belafonte subjected her to emotional and physical abuse throughout their relationship, and threatened to leak sex tapes of her.
The 41-year-old singer wrote that Belafonte's abuse often occurred after high-profile events, including punching her following her appearance on Australia's version of X Factor in July 2012 and again days after she performed with the Spice Girls at the London Olympics.
Her filing contends Belafonte's actions have disrupted her career. She wrote that Belafonte was verbally abusive to her last year while she was on a trip to London during filming of Amer
ica's Got Talent. Brown is a judge on the series.
She also claims he filmed them having sex, sometimes secretly, and repeatedly threatened to release them publicly or to dis- rupt her business plans. Brown is asking a judge to prevent Belafonte from releasing the videos.
She filed to divorce her husband of nearly 10 years on March 20, citing irreconcilable differences
Court records filed in their divorce do not include a lawyer for Belafonte.
A hearing on the temporary restraining order has been set for April 24.
TMZ caught up with Belafonte, who claims to not have heard the allegations raised by Brown in court.
In one specific incident, Brown said that she was getting ready to perform on the Dancing
with the Stars finale in November 2007 when Belafonte choked her and slammed her down the hardwood floors.
When told of this, Belafonte told the TMZ interviewer: “Keep going. I haven't heard these allegations.”
Brown also alleged that Belafonte punched her for “flirting with Usher” while doing a taped segment for X Factor.
“Usher is not on X Factor so that's not possible,” replied Belafonte.
The film producer laughed when TMZ asked him about the allegation that he forced Brown into a threesome. “Okay,” he said.
In the end, Belafonte said he was “distraught” by the allegations because these would affect the children they share. He also claims that the allegations were cooked up by lawyers so they could make money out of the situation.
“Why do this? We were friends two weeks ago. I guess someone is making money out of all of this—mainly the lawyers,” was the 41-year-old film producer's parting shot.
Brown also claimed that Belafonte got their nanny pregnant but demanded that the latter get an abortion. He later paid the nanny over $300,000 for “alleged nanny services.” The money was credited in Brown's account.
After years of abuse, Brown said she took an entire bottle of aspirin in 2014 then tried calling for help but Belafonte stopped her.
Brown and Belafonte have a five-year- old daughter named Madison. Brown also has two daughters from previous relationships: 18-year- old Phoenix Chi Gulzar and 10-year- old Angel Iris Murphy, whose father is comedian Eddie Murphy. / with AP