MEL B DATING A MARRIED MAN!
Melanie “Mel B” Brown finds love with a taken man — just as her divorce gets uglier
Melanie “Mel B” Brown is moving on — or at least, she’s trying to. Five months after splitting from her husband of 10 years, Stephen Belafonte — in one of the nastiest Hollywood divorces ever — the former Spice Girl, 42, has found love again.
But there’s a wrinkle. “He’s married,” a close friend tells In Touch exclusively. “He’s a cop with the Beverly Hills Police Department. He’s also younger than her.” It could be a recipe for disaster. “Mel’s life is complicated enough right now,” says a source. “The last thing she needs is the over-the-top drama of dating a married man.”
But Scary Spice is smitten. Though they haven’t been dating long, “She already seems to be in love with her new guy,” says the friend, explaining that the judge on the highly rated America’s Got Talent met her beau while dealing with law enforcement in the aftermath of her divorce. “This guy is giving Mel a huge ego boost. He worships the ground that she walks on, and she loves it.” Though friends are wary of him because of his marital status, Mel has been assuring everyone that “he was unhappily married for a while,” adds the friend. “He had planned to separate from his wife prior to meeting Mel.”
The hot new romance just may be what Mel needs right now. “The divorce keeps getting uglier and uglier,” says the source. In April, after announcing her divorce from Stephen, Mel was granted a temporary restraining order against the movie producer, 42, after alleging in court papers that he brutally beat her on multiple occasions and threatened to release sex tapes that could potentially destroy Mel’s reputation and career. She stated that Stephen forced her into having threesomes with other women, including their former nanny Lorraine Gilles. ( Mel was also granted a temporary restraining order against Lorraine.) In the papers, Mel also alleged that Stephen got Lorraine pregnant and then used Mel’s money to pay for her abortion and “hotel stay while she recuperated from the procedure.” Shortly after, Lorraine filed a defamation lawsuit against Mel, claiming the singer lied about her in the court papers.
The nanny didn’t stop there. After Mel’s legal team asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, Lorraine filed a 128-page response on Aug. 8 detailing intimate and graphic details of her relationship with Mel. In the papers, Lorraine alleges that Mel was the one who first proposed having “group sex” and that they carried on a seven-year sexual relationship. The papers also include sexually graphic emails and texts between Mel and Lorraine, and Lorraine’s claim that Mel acted “as a cameraman” to film their threesomes and that at no time did Lorraine “represent to Melanie that I was pregnant with Stephen’s child.” “This whole thing has taken a huge toll on Mel,” says the source. “It’s her own personal hell.”
Now she has to worry about Stephen using her new romance against her. “Her divorce from Stephen is still not finalized. He could absolutely use [ her relationship with this married man] against her in court,” says the source. Mel shares daughter Madison, 5, with Stephen. She’s also mom to Phoenix, 18, and Angel, 10, from previous relationships. “He could try and portray her as a bad mother — being selfish and not doing what’s best for her kids.”
But Mel remains unfazed. “She’s telling everyone that she will not be intimidated or bullied by Stephen,” adds the source. “For the first time in a very long time, she’s happy. And after everything she’s been through, she says she deserves this.” ◼