Mel B granted restraining order against Stephen Belafonte
Mel B has been granted a restraining order against her estranged husband Stephen Belafonte.
The 41-year-old film producer has been ordered to stay away from the singer and her three children after she claimed in documents submitted to the court and obtained by TMZ that he hit her, got their nanny pregnant and forced her to take part in threesomes during their 10-year marriage.
The former Spice Girl – who filed for divorce from her ex-beau last month – alleged the abuse started within the first year of their marriage in 2007 and saw him "punch" her, "choke" her and "split" her lip.
The documents state, "Stephen placed both of his hands around her neck, began choking her and slammed her down onto the hardwood floors," while she was preparing for ‘Dancing with the Stars’.
Mel has claimed the domestic abuse became a reoccurring "pattern" for the then-couple with Stephen allegedly choosing to "beat her down to let her know he was in charge" whenever she saw a spike in her career.
She has also accused the producer of hurting her after he flew into a fit of rage out of "jealousy" when she filmed a segment with Usher, which he saw as "flirting", for ‘The X Factor’ in 2012.
Things allegedly took another turn for the worse just before the Spice Girls performed at the Olympic closing ceremony in London in 2012 as he pushed her so hard that she suffered carpet burns.
Mel has claimed her estranged husband forced her to tweet that she had "injured herself by running in heels" in a bid to stop people speculating when she took to the stage in front of the whole world.
The singer – who has five-year-old daughter Madison with Stephen – has stated she became so "overcome with emotional and physical exhaustion" in 2014 that she overdosed on a bottle of Aspirin.
However, she’s claimed she never reported the attempted overdose to the emergency services because Stephen allegedly locked her in the bedroom and told her to "die, bitch."
But Mel has admitted she wasn’t just subject to physical and emotional abuse but Stephen also allegedly got their nanny pregnant and suggested "all three of us" live together with the new baby.
However, the nanny was later paid a reported $300,000 to have an abortion, the documents claim.
It was previously claimed that the estranged couple had an "open and loose relationship" but Mel states that Stephen actually forced her to have "intercourse with him and random women."
He then secretly filmed the steamy trysts and allegedly threatened to release the sex tapes.
Mel has claimed she had previously tried to leave Stephen but he "threatened me with violence and threatened to destroy my life in every possible way … destroy my career and take my kids from me."
Stephen has denied all the allegations against him and says he has been left "distraught" by her claims.
He told TMZ: "I haven’t heard these allegations. You know what my comment on this is, as this is the mother of my children? I’m really really distraught in my brain by how this is going to affect our children and the depths that she’s gone to. I’m shocked at those allegations and that’s what it is. I think someone’s set me up to look like a bad guy. Obviously you saw my house got raided and nobody found anything. It’s accusation after accusation. But we’ll have our day in court. And we have children. If anyone knows our children, we have beautiful children. They’re on social media. Why do this? We were friends two weeks ago. And now all of a sudden the team gets around and now it’s got to be this."
As well as Madison with Stephen, Mel also has Phoenix, 18, with her first husband Jimmy Gulzar and nine-year-old daughter Angel with Eddie Murphy.
