This article originally appeared on People.
Melanie “Mel B” Brown has accused her estranged husband Stephen Belafonte of years of physical and emotional abuse in startling new court documents obtained by PEOPLE.
The singer filed for a temporary restraining order against her husband of 10 years on Monday, outlining how Belafonte allegedly manipulated and threatened her into staying with him. Belafonte, 41, has been ordered by authorities to leave the family’s Los Angeles home and to stay away from Brown, 41, and her three daughters: Phoenix, 18, Angel, 10, and 5-year-old Madison.
TMZ first reported news of the restraining order. Belafonte has denied the claims to TMZ and said he is “shocked” by the allegations.
Neither Belafonte nor Brown responded to a request for comment from PEOPLE.
In the documents, Brown alleges that she is “in fear” for her life, and that Belafonte’s alleged abuse ramped up whenever she saw career success. “When something good would happen for me, he would beat me down to let me know that he was in charge,” she claims. Below, more of the shocking allegations from Brown’s filing.
Belafonte allegedly impregnated the former couple’s nanny.
Brown alleges that after Belafonte hired a German exchange student to be their nanny in 2010, he quickly began to pit the two women against each other. She claims that Belafonte would degrade her in front of the nanny, comparing their looks.
Eventually, Brown claims, the relationship between Belafonte and the nanny became sexual and he began “paying her inordinate amounts of money.”
“Over the course of some three years, I recently learned that [Belafonte] paid Lorraine [the nanny] in excess of $300,000 for alleged nanny services,” she claims.
Then in the spring of 2014, Brown alleges that the nanny and Belafonte announced their pregnancy, and stated that they wanted “all three of us to live together.” Brown says that Belafonte later demanded that the nanny have an abortion, and used Brown’s money to pay for it.
“I was shocked and in disbelief,” Brown states in the declaration. “[He] used money earned by me to pay for Lorraine’s abortion, and he used money earned by me to pay for Lorraine’s hotel stay while she recuperated from the procedure.”
Belafonte allegedly forced Brown to participate in threesomes.
The star claims that Belafonte “demanded that I participate in sexual intercourse with him and random women that he brought back to our hotel rooms.”
Brown says that if she objected to participating, Belafonte would threaten to release compromising videos of her – including those taped of such encounters — without her permission.
“If I discovered these recordings, I would beg him to delete them,” she claims. “These tapes represent yet another hallmark in [Belafonte’s] scheme to manipulate and control in that these tapes and others became the subject of his threats in the event I should ever leave the relationship.”
In the documents, Brown declares, “I have lived the past decade in fear that [Belafonte] would release intimate videos of me that would embarrass me and damage my reputation and my career. Once [he] made the threat of releasing videos, it became impossible to say no to him, giving him complete control.”
Belafonte allegedly punched Brown for “flirting” with Usher.
In July 2012, Brown says she was taping The X Factor in Sydney, Australia, but was sent to New York to film a “Home Visit” segment with singer Usher.
She claims that Belafonte “flew into a rage” about the segment, and charged she had been “flirting with Usher all day.” Brown alleges that Belafonte then punched her in the face with a closed fist, saying that it was a repercussion for her wanting to “‘flirt with and f—‘” Usher.
In order to cover up the injury when she returned to set, Brown says she told people who questioned her that she’d had an allergic reaction to shellfish. Subsequently, the crew had a doctor give her an unnecessary steroid injection intended to treat an allergic reaction.
“My lip and lower portion of my face was swollen to the point that I had to be filmed from a particular angle so that the injury would not show up on tape,” Brown claims in the documents.
Belafonte allegedly forced Brown to tweet about falling to cover up an injury.
During an alleged August 2012 incident, Belafonte punched and pushed Brown down after she performed with the Spice Girls at the London Olympics closing ceremonies. Brown claims that her skin was “scabbed over from the rug burns” on the carpet and that Belafonte allegedly forced her to tweet that she hurt herself by running in Christian Louboutin heels.
Brown appeared to address the incident in an August 2012 tweet, writing, “Running in 7 inch louboutin no good!! I’m wearing Prague on my face!!!”
Belafonte allegedly refused to help Brown after she regretted ingesting a whole bottle of aspirin.
Brown claims that she once ingested an entire bottle of aspirin, a decision she regretted immediately. She alleges that as she attempted to call the police, however, Belafonte blocked her. He allegedly threw her into a bedroom, locked the door and yelled, “‘Die bitch!’” according to the documents.
Brown says her driver — who had arrived to take her to work the next morning — instead took her to a hospital, where she stayed for two days. “I was badly hurt,” she claims in the documents. “During that time, [Belafonte] was not allowed near me. I had security standing outside my hospital door with a picture of him so they knew to keep him out.”
Upon her return to work on The X Factor in December 2014, Brown claims she “still had visible facial and body wounds” that “could not be concealed, even with heavy theatrical makeup” and included the below images as evidence.
Belafonte allegedly disposed of Brown’s passport to keep her from seeing her father before his death.
In November 2016, Brown’s father was dying from cancer and she says she wanted to travel to the U.K. to be with him, but had to stay in New York for “contractual obligations.” Brown alleges that she told Belafonte she was upset she couldn’t visit, and he told her to “suck it up” and that “if he’s going to die he’s going to die.”
She further believes that he hid her passport to “intentionally delay” her trip to England until after her father’s death, and claims she was forced to get an emergency passport. Brown says she arrived in Leeds just days before her father died in March. She made the decision to file for divorce shortly thereafter.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.