We’ve never been fans of the nickname “Scary Spice,” given to The Spice Girls’ Mel B. But the entertainer and judge of America’s Got Talent recently disclosed a detail about how she dealt with her purportedly “abusive” relationship and divorce from ex-husband Stephen Belafonte (no relation to Harry Belafonte) that definitely gave us...pause.
The former couple’s well-publicized 2017 split was rife with accusations of abuse, including Brown’s charges that her ex beat her and blackmailed her into performing sex acts. In fact, revisiting the incidents while writing her memoir, Brutally Honest, which was released on Monday, was apparently so triggering that Brown was diagnosed with PTSD and entered rehab in August.
According to Vulture, Brown, who will soon be rejoining several of her fellow former Spice Girls for a reunion tour, is doing much better. But in her memoir and a recent appearance on the British talk show “Loose Women,” she admitted to keeping a rather unconventional memento of her traumatic union: a surgically removed piece of skin bearing a tattoo of Belafonte’s name.
According to Brown, Belafonte forced her to get the tattoo that once resided on her ribs, which read “Stephen, till death do us part you own my heart.” While having a subsequent cosmetic surgical procedure, she asked her doctor, also a good friend, to literally cut her ex’s name off her body instead of opting for laser removal, which Brown claims would’ve been even more painful (as well as taking multiple rounds of treatment that would’ve left the outline still visible). And to remind her that the relationship is truly over, she’s saved the evidence.
“It sounds horrific, but what I went through was so horrific,” she explained to the show’s panel. “I’ve saved it in a jar, which sounds a bit strange, I know ... It’s at the top of my wardrobe. Nobody can see it, but I know it’s there and it’s off my body.”
We’ve admittedly gone to some extreme measures to cut off an ex, but this is the most literal tactic we’ve ever heard. That said, if it helped Brown heal from a very painful and abusive chapter of her life, it’s her prerogative to do so, by any means necessary.
“It was almost like a cleanse,” she said. “I just wanted to feel fresh and new again and untouched by that person.”