Five years ago Spice Girl Mel B accused her ex-husband Stephen Belafonte of mental and physical abuse after she filed for divorce [click here if you missed that].
Now Mel's oldest daughter Phoenix opens up about the verbal and mental abuse she experience during her mother's turbulent marriage...
From The Daily Mail
MEL B's daughter Phoenix Brown has opened up for the first time about the hell she suffered living with her abusive stepdad Stephen Belafonte.
In a new interview, Phoenix, 23, has revealed the nasty names her former father figure called her, and how she felt when he rowed with her Spice Girl mum.
Two months after Melanie gave birth to Eddie's daughter Angel, now 15, she and Belafonte married in Las Vegas and Phoenix's life changed dramatically. Friends and family were ostracised and Belafonte introduced draconian new rules.
'I had to stay in my room with the door shut. I wasn't allowed to go in the fridge but I had 30 minutes to make my packed lunch for school.
'Often in the morning he'd pull it out and eat my sandwiches, laugh at me and tell me to get to school.
'He'd tell me I was ugly and retarded all the time. I had this beautiful Labrador called Lordy who we'd had since I was born. I loved him.
'Stephen picked him up one day and threw him across the garden into the pool – Lordy was old, he was terrified. I couldn't speak. A few weeks later I came back from school and Stephen told me he'd had him put down.'
These stories are delivered so matter-of-factly it's clear they're just the tip of the iceberg. 'I kept quiet about so many things,' says Phoenix.
