The war between singer Mel B and husband Stephen Belafonte rages on. Photo / Getty Images
The war between singer Mel B and husband Stephen Belafonte rages on. Photo / Getty Images
Melanie 'Mel B' Brown's ex-husband Stephen Belafonte has furiously defended himself amid a string of allegations levelled against him by the former Spice Girl.
Belafonte, 43, and Brown, 43, broke up in 2017 after 10 years of marriage.
Since filing for divorce, Brown has publicly accused her ex of a decade of emotional, physical and verbal abuse. In a temporary restraining order filing, she claimed Belafonte was a "large, extremely aggressive, hostile and violent individual" who subjected her to "multiple physical beatings".
Brown also detailed shocking incidents she alleges occurred during their relationship in her new tell-all book, Brutally Honest.
But on the Kyle and Jackie O show on Monday morning, Belafonte furiously denied that he was the monster he'd been painted as in the media — and that Brown's own friends had turned on her.
"Melanie's best friend of 25 years — someone I never knew, who I never talked to — he was living with Mel, he was disgusted at what Mel was doing," he told the hosts.
"The straw that broke the camel's back was that Melanie was sleeping with all these guys. She's a grown woman, she can do whatever she wants, but when you're bringing these guys around the kids …
"One of the guys, he was an Uber driver I think, she brought him into the house, had sex with him, and left him in the house."
Belafonte explained that his ex's friend had quit working for her and then testified in court that she was a "wreck".
He also contradicted Brown's story about her 2014 attempted suicide and subsequent hospitalisation. In her book, the singer claims she swallowed hundreds of paracetamol pills, in a bid to escape her abusive marriage.
"She was partying, doing tonnes of (cocaine) in London, and she damaged her body," Belafonte alleged in his interview with the radio hosts.
Mel B and Stephen Belafonte on a night out in 2009. Photo / Getty Images
"She was on a bender for like three or four days straight. She had the X-Factor finals coming up, then she went to hospital and came up with the story that she ate 200 pills of paracetamol … But what would happen if you ate 200 paracetamol pills and didn't go to the hospital for 14 hours? You'd be dead."
He alleged that Brown had "fought" to keep her medical records of that incident sealed in court.
"She ... said I beat her to a pulp. But when the judge asked her, 'Where are your hospital records?', Melanie fought it … it would have shown all the cocaine and drugs, and wouldn't have shown any abuse."
Belafonte, who had remained largely silent on the ugly breakup until recently, said he had tried to avoid going to the press.
"My lawyer told me the most important thing. She said, 'Stephen, you're either going to play the media game, the TMZs of the world, or you're going to do it for your children and not focus on that — you're going to do it in court'," he said.
"And I went the court direction, I shut my mouth for two years. Melanie battled me out and won on social media, but I won every time we went to court. I have 85 per cent custody of my daughter right now."
Despite his protestations of innocence, Belafonte urged listeners to not turn their divorce into a "he said, she said" battle.
