Stephen Belafonte strikes back!
Amid Mel B‘s publicity tour for her autobiography Brutally Honest, which discusses her tumultuous ten-year marriage with her ex, the 43-year-old spoke with DailyMailTV about his “messy” divorce with his “narcissistic liar” former wife.
Related: Mel ‘Traumatized’ Watching Forgotten Sex Tapes Of Herself
In the interview, Belafonte claims the Spice Girl and her team “concocted” a smear campaign against him, which led to him losing the right to see his step-daughter Angel, 11.
He told the publication:
“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 [their daughter] 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.”
In the interview, Belafonte refutes “utterly false” accusations of domestic violence, including an alleged incident in December 2014 where Mel appeared on X Factor UK with what appeared to be marks or bruises on her body.
“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… The judge can’t even compel her to do it… So what she does is makes the allegations and then pulls back… But I stand behind it 100 million percent. I would give my interest in the house to be sold 100 percent to Melanie – show the hospital records… She can’t show them because Melanie went into the hospital that day (Dec 14, 2014) for a drug overdose… Melanie has covered up her drug addiction time and time again and throwing me under the bus is kind of the way that she’s done it.”
In fact, in the book, Mel admits she was hospitalized on December 14, 2014 after overdosing on 200 aspirins.
According to Belafonte, while his ex-wife alludes to domestic violence in her book, she does not include events that she allegedly brought up during their divorce proceedings last year. These allegations include him choking and throwing her down in November 2017; him punching and splitting her lip after she filmed a segment with Usher for X Factor in 2012; and him punching and pushing her the day after she performed at the London Olympics closing ceremonies in August 2012.
“I don’t know why she’s not telling the world of all the things that she filed (in her deposition). That is very confusing.”
Even though he says they do NOT have a non-disclosure agreement, he plans to sue her for defamation of character over the “horrific, horrific things” she has said about him in the book.
Though he feels vindicated by the courts, he is upset that he wasn’t able to show more than 3,000 exhibits of evidence that allegedly prove Mel was lying. Belafonte also claims his ex repeatedly changed her story during the court case.
“I’m not interested in my version against her version… I’m just interested in the facts presented in court, that Melanie buried… She’s manufactured this whole life of abuse for 10 years with no proof, zero proof… We submitted thousands of emails and text messages that contradicted everything that Melanie said, but the whole world never got to see that.”
They ultimately settled out of court.
Though he says he was in love with Mel at the beginning of their relationship in 2007, he couldn’t take her “drinking and cocaine use.”
“We very much were in love, we had a lot of amazing times and for some reason, you know, she came out with all of these false allegations… After 10 years of our marriage, when we decided to get divorced, it was a mutual decision… Her drinking and cocaine use were out of control and I couldn’t take it anymore.”
While he initially thought their divorce would be amicable, it was anything but.
“All of our text messages and emails leading up to our separation were normal… it didn’t make any sense… Our whole game plan was to have a very smooth transition, where we lived semi-close to each other and the kids would still come over and everything was normal… We agreed that we would have our lawyers talk to each other about money, we didn’t argue about any of it. It’s crazy, it doesn’t even make sense why she did this.”
Mel and her lawyers allegedly said they would dismiss all of their domestic violence allegations if he gave up “financial rights” and daughter Madison’s custody. He refused.
“Melanie and her lawyers contacted me and my lawyers and said, ‘Listen, if you give up any financial rights and you give up any rights in Madison we’ll dismiss all of the allegations’… Remember, I never had a charge, I had allegations… she was going to dismiss all the allegations if I gave up my daughter and money… And that’s never going to happen. You know, I’m a father who would take ten bullets for my daughter… You’re not going to scare me into a bunch of lies. There was no truth. If there was any truth to it, maybe she would have had a point, but it was 100% fabricated to gain a tactical advantage.'”
At the end of their legal drama, Belafonte was awarded half of the couple’s money, and he says he is able to see Madison most of the time.
Sadly, he says he has not seen stepdaughter Angel, whose biological father is Eddie Murphy.
“I lost my stepdaughter, who I love more than anything, that I had from a brand new baby up until she was ripped from me with no explanation… The last text message I ever got from her was, ‘Daddy, where are you? Why won’t you call me back?’… And I was never allowed to talk to her.'”
He concludes:
“I’m going to continue to be an amazing father to my daughter, I look forward to the day I can walk up to Angel and show her how hard her step-daddy fought for her… I am just going to go on with my life, work hard and try to forget all the negativity Melanie has created and I’m gonna fight really hard in court to have the truth come out… You’d take a bullet for your child any day of the week, but Melanie keeps firing bullets and at the very end my daughters are going to read all of the negative things she’s saying. So I had to. I was forced to come forward to talk to tell people what really happened.”
Read the full interview HERE.
[Image via FayesVision/WENN.]
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