The first public warning sign came in December 2014, when Mel B was absent from a taping of the reality-competition series X Factor. Viewers at home were told that the pop star had fallen ill, but eyebrows were raised when the former Spice Girls singer appeared on the program the following evening with bruises on her arms and cheek. Mel B’s mother, Andrea, took to Twitter to insinuate that her daughter’s then-husband, Stephen Belafonte, was behind the bruising.
“On average It takes 30 beatings 4 a woman to leave abusive man how sad more should b done 4 these victims!!” she tweeted. Belafonte denied hitting his wife; Mel B remained silent at the time, only to tell the tabloids two months later: “No, my husband didn’t hit me. No, I didn’t get held hostage. Me and my husband are madly in love.”
She won’t be silent anymore.
According to TMZ, Mel B filed a restraining order against her ex Belafonte on Monday, alleging a vicious cycle of physical and emotional abuse. The singer, 41, claims in her declaration that Belafonte—a middling movie producer, and no relation to Harry—would regularly “beat me down to let me know he was in charge.”
In July 2012, Mel B alleges that, on the eve of taping an X Factor segment with the pop superstar Usher, Belafonte became green with jealousy, and punched her in the mouth. Two months later, she says that he not only punched her in the face again following her London Olympics performance, but also dragged her across the carpet, causing rug burns. Mel B shares that she tried to leave her husband time and again since they were married in 2007, but says he “threatened me with violence and threatened to destroy my life in every possible way… destroy my career and take my kids away from me.”
Mel B and Belafonte, 41, have one child together and are currently in the midst of divorce proceedings.
In addition to physical violence, Mel B alleges that Belafonte got their nanny pregnant and then forced her to get an abortion. She also claims that he’d often blackmail her, threatening to release sex tapes he had of her if she failed to do his bidding. If that weren’t enough, according to the America’s Got Talent host’s written statement, Belafonte would make her “participate in sexual intercourse with him and random women,” and if she voiced any disapproval, informed her that he’d release the sex tapes online if she didn’t.
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