‘MEL B’ AND THE FOLLY OF HIRING GORGEOUS NANNIES
FORMER Spice Girl “Mel B” claims her estranged husband “degraded” her by treating their child’s glamorous German nanny like his wife.
Melanie Brown, 41, has taken out a restraining order against Stephen Belafonte, accusing him of beating her, forcing her to have threesomes and getting the nanny Lorraine Gilles pregnant.
Brown said Belafonte set Gilles up “as my rival” and would “degrade” her in front of the nanny, who was 20 when she was hired, by saying she was “much younger and better looking”.
She wrote in court documents: “In an effort to stave off his behaviour, I simply agreed with him – that yes, I was fat. Yes, I had saggy arms. Yes Lorraine was younger and better looking than me. My acquiescence became my new defence to his abuse.”
Brown filed for divorce from 41-year-old Belafonte, an American film producer, last month citing “irreconcilable differences”. Since marrying in 2007, their relationship has been overshadowed by his chequered past and claims he had assaulted her.
According to the singer’s court declaration, they hired German exchange student Gilles, now 26, to be a nanny for their daughter Madison, 5, in 2010. She wrote: “I later discovered (Belafonte) was having sex with Lorraine and paying her i n
ordinate amounts of money. Over the course of some three years, I recently learnt that he paid Lorraine in excess of $300 000 (R4.2m) for alleged nanny services.”
In the court papers, Brown claims that in 2014 Gilles told her she was pregnant by Belafonte, who initially wanted to keep the baby, insisting “all three of us live together”. He allegedly later demanded Gilles have an abortion and used Brown’s money to pay for it.
Brown says she fired Gilles in January 2015 but re-hired her after Belafonte went “ballistic”.
“He screamed and yelled at me for some three straight hours,’ she wrote.
“He told me Lorraine raised our children far better than I ever could. He told me she was the only woman in his life that completely had his back. He then threatened ‘You do realise that Lorraine could give a story to the press and tell child services. Your career will be ruined’.”
After the nanny was re-hired, Brown said Belafonte “treated Lorraine as if she was his wife and I was second rate”, which she claims made Gilles become “manipulative and demanding, knowing I could not fire her”.
When trying to leave Belafonte in the past, Brown claims he “threatened me with violence and threatened to destroy my career and take my kids from me”.
She also claimed he had a gun, even though he was prohibited from carrying firearms. She said he assaulted her on numerous occasions, including during filming for the X Factor in 2014 when she appeared on the show with what looked like cuts and bruises, and forced her into threesomes which he secretly filmed and threatened to make public. It follows claims last weekend that the couple had a threesome with socialite Lady Victoria Hervey shortly after they married.
Belafonte denies all allegations and says he has been left “distraught” by her claims. He told US website TMZ: “Why do this? We were friends two weeks ago.”
Gilles’s sister rejected Brown’s claims. Speaking from her home in Nordkirchen, Germany, Jacquelyn Baartz said: “I don’t know where this is coming from.
“She worked for the family for seven years and really loved those kids as if they were her own.”
Brown has two other daughters from previous relationships, Angel, 9, and Phoenix, 18.
Belafonte’s questionable past includes prosecutions for handling stolen goods, vandalism and an assault conviction for hitting a previous girlfriend in 2003. – Daily Mail