After Brooklyn Beckham’s flamboyant wedding last month, Scary Spice’s daughter Phoenix Brown is a fascinating contrast to Posh’s son.
Freshened up after a training session for ITV’s new game show The Games, which kicks off this week and will see him compete in Olympic-style events against 11 other celebrities, including former Strictly pro Kevin Clifton. , Christine, model wife of Paddy McGuinness, and Max George, Called.
When she comes out of the locker room, Phoenix’s hair is still damp, her socks are not together, and her face is bare.
“People can spend hours doing their hair and makeup,” she says. ‘They just aren’t. I’ve always been a tomboy.
“I want people to see me for who I am. I’m definitely not the perfect Kardashian kid.
Scary Spice’s 23-year-old daughter Phoenix Brown (pictured) talks about her abusive stepfather, filmmaker Stephen Belafonte
Phoenix, 23, is the daughter of Mel B from a 16-month marriage to Dutch backing dancer Jimmy Gulzar, which ended in 2000. As a young man, he had a ten-year abusive relationship with his mother’s stepfather, Stephen Belafonte.
After breaking up with her marriage and writing a book about her experiences called Brutally Honest (Phoenix wrote an episode), Mel has become an advocate for domestic violence survivors. She received an MBE last week for her service to other patients as the patron of Women’s Aid.
“I’m so proud of him,” Phoenix says. ‘It changed his life. It hasn’t been easy, but he stands up for others in violent situations.’
And Phoenix himself? In the last 18 months she has also joined the Women’s Aid group, going to schools to talk to young people about how to live with abuse and how to get help, but actually “knowing that they are not alone, because that’s how you hear it with this horrible secret.”
This is extremely important to him. “Up until I was nine, my life was like the perfect children’s movie,” he says. ‘I lived in Los Angeles with my mother’ [having spent most of her life there she says ‘mum’ the American way]The whole English family would come, and we had a lot of friends.’
In 2006, after her mother dated movie star Eddie Murphy for nine months, she publicly dumped him while she was pregnant, and a gruesome paternity battle ensued. Join filmmaker Stephen Belafonte, who has a criminal record, including a 2003 conviction for domestic violence.
“My world went from monochrome to black and white,” Phoenix says.
Phoenix with her mother, Melanie Brown. Mel remembers living with her mother in Los Angeles before she started dating movie star Eddie Murphy in 2006.
Two months after Melanie gave birth to Eddie’s daughter, Angel, who is now 15, she and Belafonte married in Las Vegas and Phoenix’s life changed dramatically. Friends and family were exiled, and Belafonte introduced brutal new rules.
“I had to stay in my room with the door closed. I couldn’t stay in the fridge, but I had 30 minutes to prepare the school lunch.
He often took out in the morning and ate my sandwiches, laughed at me and told me to go to school.
“He always said I was ugly and retarded. I have this beautiful Labrador named Lordy that we have had since birth. I liked it.
He laughed at me and told me I was ugly and retarded.
Stephen picked it up one day and threw it into the pool across the garden – Lordy was old, he was terrified. I could not talk. A few weeks later, I came back from school and Stephen told me you put him to sleep.
These stories are presented so realistically that they are clearly just the tip of the iceberg. “I was quiet about a lot of things,” Phoenix says.
“My mom always worked and earned money for her, for the family. I knew she was going through a terrible time, she trembled.
“They’d have these horrible fights in their room, and I’d be standing outside like a stone and feeling useless.
Mel B pictured with daughters Madison (left), Phoenix (far left) and Angel (right) and former nanny Lorraine Gilles
“But life went on. I looked at my sisters [she also has a younger sister Madison, Stephen’s daughter, now ten]†
“I tried to take care of my mother too, but I was a kid. It was a big secret. We were supposed to be a happy family.
“Go ahead and shut your emotions down. That’s how you deal with it.’
Going to school to talk to other teenagers helped her. ‘I can see from the eyes of some children that they know exactly what I’m talking about.
“You should know that it’s not your fault and that life could be better. Joining Women’s Aid has helped me a lot.
“I wanted to have something to say. Now I feel like I know who I am. I want to make my family proud, to make an impact.”
Next are the Games. Phoenix was the captain of the school’s basketball team, so cycling, swimming and diving will be a breeze.
“If I stayed with the sport,” he laughs, “they would have. It was hard, but it was painful. It’s like life. You fall and you get up.
- Games, Mon-Fri, 21:00, ITV. Visit womensaid.org.uk
Source: Daily Mail
