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Mel B’s ex-husband, Stephen Belafonte, is taking the previous Spice Ladies singer to court docket, accusing her of defamation and making an attempt to “trigger him extreme emotional misery and destroy his fame.”
In keeping with court docket paperwork obtained by ET, which have been filed on Wednesday in Florida, Belafonte alleges that the former America’s Acquired Expertise decide — whose actual identify is Melanie Brown — has “spent the higher a part of the final decade participating in a deliberate and wide-ranging marketing campaign” to defame him and smash his life and profession.
“Ms. Brown has stopped at nothing to falsely cost [Belafonte] with crimes and horrific offenses, together with bodily beatings, rape, monetary abuse, emotional abuse, intercourse trafficking, and unlawful gun possession,” the paperwork allege.
Mel B married Belafonte in June 2007 and filed for divorce in March 2017. Belafonte has had major custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Madison, since 2019.
Mel B can also be the mother of two different kids — 25-year-old daughter Phoenix Brown, whom she shares with ex-husband Jimmy Gulzar, and 17-year-old daughter Angel from her transient relationship with Eddie Murphy.
Belafonte claims that Mel B first defamed him “with a fraudulent declare of home violence in 2017,” however that she dismissed the declare earlier than he “had his day in court docket” to defend himself.
Previous to her divorce from Belafonte getting finalized on the finish of 2017, Mel B had filed a brief restraining order towards him alleging each bodily and sexual abuse, which she claims to have begun quickly after they have been married in 2007. Belafonte denied the allegations, and Mel B dismissed the request.
Belafonte’s lawsuit additional claims that Mel B’s alleged “marketing campaign of abuse” continued with the re-publishing of her 2018 memoir, Brutally Trustworthy.
Belafonte argues that the e book — which makes quite a few accusations of abuse towards Belafonte — is an instance of how Mel B has allegedly “leveraged her thirty years of fame to assault Mr. Belafonte in a malicious and vindictive world smear.”
“Ms. Brown has been profiting off of her public lies as she portrays Mr. Belafonte as a ‘monster’ on world tv and media appearances and in her satirically named e book,” the paperwork declare. “[Her] relentless assaults have been calculated to make sure most protection of her false narratives and actual most injury to Mr. Belafonte’s fame and emotional state.”
The lawsuit claims that Belafonte didn’t beforehand sue Mel B “with a view to shield his younger daughter from a drawn-out and public litigation.”
Moreover, Belafonte claims that — since he has had custody of Madison, who lives with him in the US — Mel B “has barely maintained a relationship” with their daughter. He claims Mel B has solely visited her as soon as previously 4 years, “despite the fact that she has flown to the US, for work-related appearances and tapings, on a number of events.”
Belafonte is suing for “a minimum of $5 million” in compensatory damages, in addition to punitive and exemplary damages, and is searching for a trial by jury.
ET has reached out to reps for Mel B for remark.
Again in March, Mel B talked with BBC concerning the embarrassment she felt after leaving California and touring hundreds of miles to her hometown of Leeds, in order that she may transfer into her mother’s bungalow following her cut up from Belafonte.
Mel B has claimed quite a few instances that Belafonte abused her bodily all through their marriage. Nonetheless, going past her earlier statements, Mel B spoke with the BBC about what she known as “monetary abuse” as effectively.
“I wasn’t simply emotionally and bodily abused, there was all of the monetary abuse, too. I didn’t notice that I didn’t have as a lot cash as I believed I had. So I actually needed to eat humble pie, dwell with my mum,” she advised BBC.
Regardless of being on a sold-out tour with the Spice Ladies when she determined to maneuver house, Mel B mentioned that she needed to be taught to dwell “frugally” within the years after their divorce — together with purchasing on a funds and solely not too long ago having the ability to afford a home by herself.
Divorce information present that the singer was ordered to pay Belafonte $350,000 as a part of their settlement and $5,000 a month in baby help for his or her daughter.
Belafonte, a movie producer, has repeatedly denied her claims since she first spoke out, calling them “outrageous and unfounded.”
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