With a string of TV talent show judging stints under her belt, an MBE for her work raising awareness of domestic violence and 1.7million Instagram followers, Mel B is arguably the most successful Spice Girl after Victoria Beckham.
Just one year shy of her 50th birthday and planning her wedding to fiancé Rory McPhee at St Paul’s Cathedral, where Princess Diana walked down the aisle, on paper she should be a time where she’s enjoying financial and personal stability.
However, the reality is looking rather more complicated for the mother-of-three who this week saw her bid to have her ex-husband’s £4million defamation lawsuit against her thrown out.
Stephen Belafonte is taking legal action against her for writing about their ‘abusive relationship’ in her book, Brutally Honest, and there is also the constant pain of her daughter Madison, 12, living with her ex who gained primary custody.
Bad news about the lawsuit came in the same week she reignited her feud with the Spice Girls, branding all of her former bandmates including Emma Bunton, Mel C, Geri Horner and Victoria Beckham ‘d***heads’ for refusing to do a reunion tour.
The famously fiery star admitted she badgered them so persistently that she was also ‘kicked out’ of the Spice Girls’ WhatsApp group.
Perhaps she has more of a vested interest than the others in making their comeback happen with a court battle to pay for at a time when she was just getting back on her feet financially.
In 2023, she had judging roles on The Masked Singer Australia and Queen of The Universe, a drag queen singing competition on Paramount+, but 2024 has proved to be a quiter year workwise.
The Spice Girl, 49, was unable to stop the case Stephen Belafonte launched against her for writing publicly about their ‘abusive relationship’ in her book, Brutally Honest (pictured 2016)
The singer previously revealed that after leaving Stephen she was only left with £700 to her name and had to move back into her mother’s home in Leeds while her costly divorce from Belafonte ate away at her fortune.
She’s since built herself back up with various TV roles, but going back to court with Belafonte is certainly not ideal financially – especially with no lucrative Spice Girls reunion on the horizon.
Then there is the trauma of still being embroiled with her ex, who Mel claims left her with PTSD.
Here MailOnline reveals how Mel’s battle with Belafonte has turned into a long war, seven years after they announced they were divorcing.
LEGAL ATTLE WITH BELAFONTE
Mel accused Stephen of being abusive and controlling during their relationship, which she detailed in interviews and her biography Brutally Honest.
Belafonte denies the claims and has filed a £3.9million defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife.
Last month, Mel B’s legal team asked for the case to be thrown out, but it has been denied, The Mirror reported.
According to the newspaper, Belafonte said: ‘I am ready to prove Melanie’s statements about me are false.’
In their filing to have the case dismissed, Mel B’s lawyers said: ‘Brown should have never been dragged through the courts because of an exercise of [her] constitutional rights.’
The film producer is suing Mel, claiming that she ‘engaged in a deliberate and wide-ranging campaign to cause him severe emotional distress and destroy his reputation’, it was revealed in May.
Belafonte, 49, alleges that Mel began her ‘long-brewing harassment’ in 2017 with ‘fraudulent’ domestic violence claims, which he says these were eventually dismissed.
But he later admitted: ‘The damage had been done. As a result of false allegations of rape, illegal gun possession, sex trafficking, production of illegal porn, domestic battery and child endangerment, Mr Belafonte lost access to his home and children.
‘The American film producer is suing Mel claiming she ‘engaged in a deliberate and wide-ranging campaign to cause him severe emotional distress and destroy his reputation’.
Mel will now have to face Belafonte in court after previously claiming she suffers from post traumatic stress disorder because of their relationship.
Appearing on Loose Women in March, Mel revealed that five years after leaving Stephen, she still suffered from panic attacks and PTSD, and had previously tried to end her marriage six or seven times.
MEL AND STEPHEN’S BITTER HISTORY
In March 2024, Mel admitted she felt ‘powerless’ while married to Stephen, despite her famous Girl Power mantra.
Speaking on Loose Women, Mel made an appearance on the show during their Facing It Together campaign, which aims to raise awareness of domestic abuse.
Over the years, Mel B has accused him of physical, emotional, and financial abuse, claims he denies.
Mel told the panel that she was reluctant to leave Stephen as she had completely ostracised herself from her family.
She said: ‘Even though I was in my marriage for ten years I tried to leave six or seven times. I went back due to fear or blackmail.
‘You think ”what am i going to do if I leave, I haven’t spoken to my mum in weeks, then its month, then years.” It happens so gradually.’
‘You feel like you’re doing everything wrong and they encourage that feeling. I went from living in a mansion in LA to my mum’s bungalow with my kids.’
Mel also appeared on the show to discuss the release of a revised version of her autobiography Brutally Honest.
She said: ‘Writing the book was cathartic. But it was a taboo topic in 2018 and no publisher wanted it.’
Discussing the aftermath of her divorce, she added: ‘I’m seven years out and I still have PTSD and panic attacks because I don’t trust myself, how could I when I thought that person loved me. I’m all about girl power but I was powerless.’
‘I had lots of head tapping things to ease the trauma because I didn’t want to talk about it.’
In March 2024, Mel admitted she felt ‘powerless’ while married to Stephen, despite her famous Girl Power mantra (pictured 2015)
MEL’S FINANCIAL WOES
The singer previously revealed that after leaving Stephen she was only left with £700 to her name and secretly shopped in Lidl to make ends meet.
She said the millions she made as part of the Spice Girls had dwindled down to just a few hundred after she walked away from her marriage to Stephen in 2018.
Mel said she would bulk buy on visits to Lidl and Costco and moved into her mother’s bungalow in Leeds while facing hefty legal fees amid their divorce battle.
It was a far cry from her Los Angeles lifestyle, where she says she completely lost control of her huge fortune.
‘In LA I hadn’t bought a pint of milk in years. But back home I would buy in bulk from Costco and got really into shopping in Lidl and Aldi,’ Melanie told The Sun.
‘It was Covid times and I would put on my face mask and no one would recognise me. I stood in a queue for the first time in a long time. No one batted an eyelid.’
The media personality learned to budget for herself once again and spent what money she had more wisely, saying she saw it as taking back her power after being in an abusive relationship.
She said of the dark period in her life which was plagued by financial stress: ‘People will assume, ”She’s rich, she’s a Spice Girl”. But I went from performing to thousands at Wembley on the Spice Girls’ 13-date Reunion Tour in 2019 to squeezing into my mum’s with my kids sleeping in bed with me.
‘I didn’t expect that to happen in my 40s after a successful career but I had nowhere else to go because I was so badly affected financially from my relationship, I had to pick up the pieces.’
STEPHEN BRANDS HIS EX A ‘NARCISSISTIC LIAR’
In 2018, Stephen broke his silence over the bitter divorce as he denied her ‘utterly false’ accusations of domestic violence and challenges the truth behind her damning book Brutally Honest.
Branding the America’s Got Talent judge a ‘narcissistic liar,’ he claimed she systematically tried to ‘annihilate’ every aspect of his character with a catalog of ‘horrific’ lies.
Belafonte insisted Mel and her legal team ‘concocted’ a cynical plan to drag his name through the mud in a bid to gain a ‘tactical advantage’ in the divorce proceedings, despite having ‘zero proof.’
And he says he has been left heartbroken after losing the right to see his step-daughter Angel, who he helped raise from birth, while also being upset that all his children can now read about his and Mel’s ‘dirty’ and ‘messy’ divorce because of his former wife’s actions.
In 2018, Stephen broke his silence over the bitter divorce as he denied her ‘utterly false’ accusations of domestic violence and challenges the truth behind her damning book Brutally Honest
Branding the America’s Got Talent judge a ‘narcissistic liar,’ he claimed she systematically tried to ‘annihilate’ every aspect of his character with a catalog of ‘horrific’ lies (pictured in 2012)
Speaking exclusively to DailyMailTV in Beverly Hills, Belafonte, said: ‘It was dirty. Melanie came out of the gate with such horrific tall tales – it’s probably the worst divorce that’s ever played out in the media, it was very messy.
‘She said horrifically bizarre things – that I beat her, I ran a pornography company, I was a sex trafficker, I beat our dog, random things to garner some attention.
‘I could not stop what Melanie started. She made these allegations to get a tactical advantage. She wanted everything, all the money and full custody of Madison.
‘She knows when she goes out and makes these allegations, they’re going to go everywhere, she did it purposefully. She did it to try to bash me so I would have to take her deal.
‘But she doesn’t understand one thing about me – I could lose it all, but I’m never gonna lose my daughter. When she took her away I just had to work harder to get her back.’
Belafonte called out the book as all ‘lies’ and challenges his ex to produce a single bit of evidence to prove he was violent or abusive.
He doubled down on the challenge by vowing to give his ex wife his share of their $7million marital home – if she could produce a shred of evidence.
He references the night of December 14, 2014, days before Mel appeared at the UK X Factor grand final with what appeared to be marks or bruises on her body.
He explained: ‘She has said I put her in the hospital and I beat her so bad that she was in there for six or seven days. That’s an open and shut case. You show the hospital records, the judge says wow and then I am the scumbag that she says I am because she has the proof.
‘But what she did was very tricky. She made all these allegations and then she won’t show the hospital records.’
BATTLE OVER CUSTODY OF MADISON
Despite their divorce being final in December 2017, trying to settle complicated issues between them mostly over children and money, dragged on for another nine months and the warring couple didn’t settle until August 2018.
The couple finally reached an agreement that brought to an end their vicious battle over money and custody of Madison.
After a lengthy custody hearing, US courts ruled Madison must live with her father as she is an American citizen. Belafonte also has a 19-year-old daughter named Gisele.
Mel revealed her agony over being separated from her youngest daughter Madison, 12, after her split from ex-husband Stephen Belafonte.
Mel B poses with daughters Madison Brown Belafonte at a Women’s Aid event in London in 2022
Mel with all three of her children Phoenix (right), Angel (centre-right) and Madison (centre-left) as she celebrated being awarded an honorary doctorate this year
Mel returned to her native Leeds in 2019 after she walked away from her marriage to Belafonte.
The Spice Girl star was forced to move back in with her mother Andrea as she endured financial difficulties amid her divorce.
Speaking to The Sun, Mel said: ‘It is like having an arm cut off. She is my baby. I have spent a fortune on legal battles but at least she spends big chunks of time here.
‘In the eyes of the court I’m the big earner and have to pay his court fees as well as my own.
‘I’ve been campaigning through my work on behalf of Women’s Aid for the court system to better understand financial abuse.’
Mel is also mother to Phoenix, 25, from a past relationship with dancer Jimmy Gulza and Angel, 16, from a romance with Eddie Murphy.
CAREER UNCERTAINTY WITH SPICE GIRLS REUNION ON HOLD
This week Mel branded bandmates Emma Bunton, Mel C, Geri Horner and Victoria Beckham ‘d***heads’ over not wanting to do a Spice Girls reunion.
Scary Spice, 49, reignited her spat with the group after she was kicked out of the WhatsApp chat earlier this year.
The singer has publicly made known she is desperately wanting the girls to get back together and reunite for an iconic 30th anniversary tour.
But as Emma, 48, Mel C, 50, Geri, 52, and Victoria, 50, make it clear that a reunion isn’t on their radar, Mel B still consistently bombards them – and was kicked out the chat because of it.
According to The Sun, as Mel B was pressed about why she was really removed from the chat on TV’s Never Mind The Buzzcocks 90s special, she said: ‘Because they’re d***heads.’
Scary Spice reignited her spat with Emma Bunton, Mel C, Geri Horner and Victoria Beckham after she was kicked out of the WhatsApp chat earlier this year (pictured in 1997)
When asked once again if she thinks a reunion could happen on the Sky Max panel show, Mel B said: ‘I don’t know. We’ll see.’
Mel previously confessed she’d been banished from the WhatsApp group with Victoria, Geri, Melanie, and Emma over her chatterbox tendencies.
Under strict orders to remain shtum, she tried to keep tight lipped on possible plans for the band on The Jonathan Ross Show earlier this year, but also confirmed that there was ‘definitely’ something in the works.
She said: ‘We are wanting to do something and we are but I can’t really tell you because I’ll get kicked out of the WhatsApp group again so I have to be really careful.
‘We’re definitely doing something. I’m probably going to get told off! I’m in trouble now.’
She explained: ‘I get kicked out of the group because I get so excited whenever I talk about Spice Girls and the more I say something’s going to happen, I will it that much that it does happen like the Olympics and the 2019 tour.’
In April Mel B broke her silence after it was reported she and her Spice Girls bandmate Geri had a frosty reunion at Victoria’s birthday bash.
But as Emma, Mel C, Geri and Victoria make it clear that a reunion isn’t on their radar, Mel B still consistently bombards them – and was kicked out the chat because of it
The pair are thought to have had a tense exchange before keeping their distance from one another at the party, after Mel claimed in a recent interview that Geri has lied about her age.
Following the bash, Mel appeared to extend an olive branch, as she shared a group snap with her Spice Girls bandmates on Instagram.
She wrote: ‘What an amazing girl power weekend with all my girls, i have soooo much love and respect for you ALL #friendshipneverends.’
Mel and Geri were reunited for the luxurious party held at Oswald’s in London and posed together for a group shot with other band members Emma, Victoria and Mel C – though they were at opposite ends of the line.
But The Sun claimed that Geri and Mel B were feeling tense, after Mel claimed that Ginger Spice is not 51-years-old.
Despite travelling the world together in the band’s heyday, Scary Spice claimed Geri always kept her passport close to her chest so she ‘still doesn’t know’ how old she is.
In April Mel B broke her silence after it was reported she and her Spice Girls bandmate Geri had a frosty reunion at Victoria’s birthday bash
And after the interview the pair are said to have kept a distance from each other at Victoria’s party over the weekend – before Mel B reportedly tried to offer and olive branch.
A source told the publication: ‘Mel tried to smooth things over with Geri at the party but it didn’t go as planned. She was laughing it all off but Geri didn’t seem interested in hearing what she had to say and wandered off.
‘When it came to taking their group picture, Geri kept as far away from Mel as possible which was awkward to watch.
‘Geri wanted to be there to celebrate and have a good laugh with everyone, not talk to Mel about the embarrassing things she’s said about her.’
Away from her music career, Mel does a lot of charity work to raise awareness for domestic abuse victims.
Earlier this year she was given an honorary doctorate for her service, which she said was ‘ asmassive an achievement as performing at Wembley with the Spice Girls’.
During a ceremony at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, she accepted the award recognising her campaigning efforts for domestic abuse victims.
She said: ‘Being awarded this honorary degree from Leeds Beckett University has been life-changing.
‘I didn’t just want to accept an award. I wanted to be accepted as a student at Leeds Beckett. Not only have I been awarded this degree, but I was also accepted as a student on the Trauma Informed Care course which has been a huge step for me in so many ways.
‘I am proud to feel part of this university in my home town, proud to have come here as Melanie Brown, proud to have worked alongside other students and received excellent guidance from the teaching staff.’
Mel said that becoming a student was ‘terrifying’ but added that it had ‘changed’ her life.
She explained: ‘In my life I have been to many, many places and done many extraordinary things, but being here today as a graduate of Leeds Beckett University is honestly as massive an achievement as performing at Wembley Stadium with the Spice Girls.
During a ceremony at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, the hitmaker accepted the award recognising her campaigning efforts for domestic abuse victims
Mel looked incredible at the event wearing a red, blue and yellow robe and gave a nod to her signature look by adding a leopard print lining
‘To understand yourself you have to understand the world around you. To understand what has happened to you, you need to understand the impact it has had. I wanted to understand. I wanted to learn. Leeds Beckett gave me that opportunity, that gift.
‘Walking through those doors as a student was probably one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done but it’s changed my life. And, just so you know, I passed my exams.
‘I want to thank everyone here. I stand in front of you as Melanie Brown, daughter of an immigrant, who has learned to value British education in exactly the same way as her father. My degree certificate is going straight in a frame on my wall alongside my student pass.’
The university’s vice chancellor, Peter Slee, said Mel was ‘exactly the type of citizen we are here to champion’.
Mel was made a patron of Women’s Aid in 2018 and has been invited to speak in Parliament about domestic abuse.
In 2022 she was made an Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her service to survivors and this year she added a further three chapters to her memoir, Brutally Honest, focusing on overcoming the trauma of abuse.
