Mel Bwho was the “athlete” of the Spice Girls, has acknowledged that her companions in the musical group knew perfectly well the mistreatment and abuse she suffered throughout her marriage to Stephen BelafonteAlthough she tried to hide it. Despite her silence and dissembling, her friends were aware of the situation that she did not initially report, for the same reasons that it is still difficult to report abuse within a couple relationship today: it still generates disbelief among judicial and police authorities, and before the whole of society. According to Melanie, “the Police are not educated when it comes to dealing with these issues. This cannot be. This is already an epidemic,” she has denounced.
In an interview granted this Wednesday for the BBC program Newsnightthe 47-year-old artist assured that she managed to be “very good at hiding things” just when the personal ordeal she suffered during the ten years that their marriage lasted was the most intense, but that “they were aware of what was happening”, referring to their groupmates.
Read also– The hellish marriage of Mel B, from Spice Girls: assaults, threesomes and sex videos
The former member of the Spice Girls recounted her torture five years ago, when she dared to describe the abuse suffered by producer Stephen Belafonte, father of the youngest of her three daughters, Madison 11 years old. According to Melanie Brown then, the abuse began in the first year of their marriage, already in 2007. The singer obtained a restraining order against the producer after accusing him of having beaten her, forced him to have threesomes with other women and threatened to make videos public. sexual acts to damage his career and reputation.
Mel B also explained in his day that during their marriage, every time she had a professional achievement, he hit her to “let me know that he was the boss.” In the new television interview, the singer was still very emotional and affected by these memories, and she acknowledged that the abuse “is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.”
The British star, who is also the mother of Phoenix Chi23 years old, the fruit of his first marriage with Jimmy Gulzary Angel, 15 years old and born from his relationship with the actor Eddie Murphy, pointed out that the victims still do not have it easy today when it comes to denouncing and being believed: “They are denied basic rights. It is a national mission”, for which the artist urged politicians to legislate and take measures, since she Right now, “I still wouldn’t dare to report domestic abuse, because I wouldn’t know if I can fully trust the police.”
The singer remembers that even her mother assured her that once she separated from her abuser, everything in her life would improve, “but it’s not like that,” she confessed. , a day, a month, a year, ten years… There are things that an abuser does that you never forget… there are many situations in which you feel humiliated”.
Melanie recalled how the mistreatment she suffered took away her personal autonomy: “The simplest things like getting dressed in the morning, what do I wear? I’m used to being told what to wear in such an aggressive way that these are things I didn’t have to do.” think… and I do,” he explained.
Currently, Spice sponsors Women’s Aid, an organization for which it campaigns against domestic abuse and gender violence. Through her public complaint, she wants to change the judicial system because she considers that the Police are not educated when it comes to dealing with these issues, seeing the evidence and signs of abuse, and she believes that the accusations of mistreatment are not taken seriously. .
For the singer, “this cannot be. People who are victims of domestic abuse are getting younger and younger. This is already an epidemic. When I took out my book, Catch A Fire, no one wanted to talk about this. It was like a taboo subject. It’s something that everyone knows is happening, but no one dares to talk about it,” she said.