Mel B Her secret hell
Shock new details emerge as Mel claims she’s scared for her life GUNS
Just when we thought details of her traumatic marriage couldn’t get any worse, explosive new documents in Mel B’s increasingly messy divorce have revealed the horrifying extent of the suffering she is alleged to have endured at the hands of her estranged husband, Stephen Belafonte.
As Woman’s Day reported last week, it has long been suspected Stephen was abusive, jealous and controlling – allegations he and Mel had always denied.
But fearing for her safety in the days following her decision to walk out on him, the former Spice Girl filed for a restraining order.
Now – after Belafonte’s home was raided by the FBI last week – a jaw-dropping dossier of the violence and terror Mel claims she was subjected to during her 10-year marriage has been revealed. Further, it’s claimed Stephen got their nanny pregnant and forced his wife into having sex with other women.
In the document, Mel claims he became abusive almost immediately after they wed in June 2007, and that she repeatedly tried to leave him but he “threatened me with violence and threatened to destroy my life in every possible way… destroy my career and take my kids from me”.
In the restraining order – which blocks her estranged husband from contacting the star and her children, Phoenix, 18, Angel, 10, and the child they share, fiveyear-old Madison – Mel says she and her kids fear for their lives.
The sensational document also alleges a frightening level of sexual exploitation in the marriage. The 41-year-old singer claims the film producer forced her to “participate in sexual intercourse with him and random women” which he recorded – and if she tried to resist, he threatened to release sex tapes to children’s services organisations so Mel would lose access to her kids.
Last week, a friend of Lady Victoria Hervey said the British aristocrat had a threesome with the couple and is now terrified footage of it will be released.
In other shocking claims, the former Spice Girl has revealed her 41-year-old ex was sleeping with their 26-year-old German nanny, Lorraine Gilles, who consequently fell pregnant – even though Lorraine’s sister Jacquelyn Baartz says the pair never had sex.
But according to Mel, “Stephen told me he wanted to have the baby and all three of us live together. I was shocked and in disbelief.”
She claims he later paid Lorraine $395,000 of Mel’s money to undergo an abortion.
As if all that wasn’t abhorrent enough, the appalling violence Mel claims she suffered at the hands of the man she pledged her life to is almost too much to bear.
One of the most distressing incidents occurred the day after Mel B and her fellow Spice Girls performed at the 2012 London Olympics Closing Ceremony.
According to the document, Stephen is alleged to have pushed Mel to the floor, dragging her face along the carpet. He then forced her to tweet that she’d fallen over while running in high heels, to cover up her visible facial injury.
Her husband’s violent rages, Mel claims, typically occurred whenever she achieved success “to let me know he was in charge”.
As part of the control, he also limited his wife’s exposure to other men. When she was a judge on X Factor Australia, fuelled by jealousy over her interactions with R&B singer Usher, he punched Mel in the face and split her lip.
Mel was so distraught after “multiple beatings” she reveals she attempted suicide before the X Factor UK’S finale in 2014.
“In a moment of emotional and physical exhaustion, I took an entire bottle of aspirin,” she writes in the document. “I immediately regretted the action and tried to call [emergency services] and Stephen blocked
me from calling for help. He threw me in the bathroom without a phone and locked the door, telling me to ‘die, b****’. ”
Mel was hospitalised the next day, and forced to miss a live X Factor show. When she returned to the set with cuts and bruises – and no wedding ring – rumours swirled that domestic violence was at play. Subsequently, Stephen was investigated by authorities for false imprisonment but, according to the document, he left the UK and avoided questioning.
Stephen has denied the allegations, saying: “Someone’s set me up to look like a bad guy.”
Last week, FBI agents entered his home with a crowbar searching for guns. Because of his 2013 domestic violence conviction against former partner Nicole Contreras, he cannot own a firearm. But the FBI found shell casing and a bullet and he now faces prosecution. In the restraining order Mel says she saw a weapon many times.
Stephen says the couple will “have their day in court”. No doubt that day will bring up even more painful memories for brave Mel, as she struggles to rebuild her life.
‘Stephen locked me in and told me to die b****’