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Mel B’s<\/a> ex-husband,\u00a0<\/span>Stephen Belafonte<\/a>, is taking the former <\/span>Spice Girls<\/a> singer to court, accusing her of defamation and attempting to “cause him severe emotional distress and destroy his reputation.”<\/span><\/p>\n According to court documents obtained by ET, which were filed on Wednesday in Florida, Belafonte alleges that the <\/span>former America’s Got Talent <\/em>judge<\/a> — whose real name is Melanie Brown —\u00a0has “spent the better part of the last decade engaging in a deliberate and wide-ranging campaign” to defame him and ruin his life and career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “Ms. Brown has stopped at nothing to falsely charge [Belafonte] with crimes and horrific offenses, including physical beatings, rape, financial abuse, emotional abuse, sex trafficking, and illegal gun possession,” the documents allege.<\/span><\/p>\n Mel B married Belafonte in June 2007 and\u00a0<\/span>filed for divorce\u00a0<\/a>in March 2017. Belafonte has had primary custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Madison, since 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n Mel B is also the mom of two other children — 25-year-old daughter\u00a0Phoenix Brown, whom she shares with ex-husband Jimmy Gulzar, and 17-year-old daughter Angel from her brief relationship with Eddie Murphy.<\/span><\/p>\n Belafonte claims that Mel B first defamed him “with a fraudulent claim of domestic violence in 2017,” but that she dismissed the claim before he “had his day in court” to defend himself.<\/span><\/p>\n Prior to her divorce from Belafonte getting\u00a0<\/span>finalized at the end of 2017<\/a>, Mel B had\u00a0<\/span>filed a temporary restraining order<\/a>\u00a0against him alleging both physical and sexual abuse, which she claims to have begun soon after they were married in 2007.\u00a0<\/span>Belafonte denied the allegations<\/a>, and Mel B dismissed the request.<\/span><\/p>\n Belafonte’s lawsuit further claims that Mel B’s alleged “campaign of abuse” continued with the re-publishing of <\/span>her 2018 memoir, <\/a>Brutally Honest<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Belafonte argues that the book — which makes numerous accusations of abuse against Belafonte — is an example of how Mel B has allegedly “leveraged her thirty years of fame to attack Mr. Belafonte in a malicious and vindictive global smear.”<\/span><\/p>\n “Ms. Brown has been profiting off of her public lies as she portrays Mr. Belafonte as a ‘monster’ on global television and media appearances and in her ironically named book,” the documents claim. “[Her] relentless attacks have been calculated to ensure maximum coverage of her false narratives and exact maximum damage to Mr. Belafonte’s reputation and emotional state.”<\/span><\/p>\n The lawsuit claims that Belafonte did not previously sue Mel B “in order to protect his young daughter from a drawn-out and public litigation.”<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, Belafonte claims that — since he has had custody of Madison, who lives with him in the United States — Mel B “has barely maintained a relationship” with their daughter. He claims Mel B has only visited her once in the past four years, “even though she has flown to the United States, for work-related appearances and tapings, on multiple occasions.”<\/span><\/p>\n Belafonte is suing for “no less than $5 million” in compensatory damages, as well as\u00a0punitive and exemplary\u00a0damages, and is seeking a trial by jury.<\/span><\/p>\n ET has reached out to reps for Mel B for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n Back in March, Mel B\u00a0talked with\u00a0<\/span>BBC<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>about the embarrassment she felt after leaving California and traveling thousands of miles to her hometown of Leeds, so that <\/span>she could move into her mom’s bungalow following her split from Belafonte.<\/a><\/p>\n Mel B has claimed numerous times that Belafonte\u00a0<\/span>abused her physically<\/a>\u00a0throughout their marriage. However, going beyond her previous statements, Mel B spoke with the<\/span> BBC <\/span><\/em>about what she called “financial abuse” as well.<\/span><\/p>\n “I wasn’t just emotionally and physically abused, there was all the financial abuse, too. I didn’t realize that I didn’t have as much money as I thought I had. So I literally had to eat humble pie, live with my mum,” she told\u00a0<\/span>BBC<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Despite being on a sold-out tour with the Spice Girls when she decided to move home, Mel B said that she had to learn to live “frugally” in the years after their divorce — including shopping on a budget and only recently being able to afford a house by herself.<\/span><\/p>\n Divorce records show that the singer was ordered to pay Belafonte $350,000 as part of their settlement and $5,000 a month in child support for their daughter.<\/span><\/p>\n Belafonte, a film producer, has\u00a0<\/span>repeatedly denied her claims<\/a>\u00a0since she first spoke out, calling them “outrageous and unfounded.”<\/span><\/p>\n