Spice Girl is spliced again
SPICE Girl Melanie Brown’s turbulent love life took a dramatic new twist yesterday.
She stunned fans when it emerged she had secretly married at a drive-through Las Vegas chapel.
The singer, better known as Scary Spice, wed Hollywood producer Stephen Belafonte at the start of June, telling just a handful of friends.
She took the plunge while still in the middle of an acrimonious paternity battle with actor Eddie Murphy.
DNA tests have now confirmed him as the father of her second child, Angel Iris, but she is facing a court battle to win financial support.
Mel and her new husband said they kept the ceremony a secret because they are planning a bigger more public celebration later this year. A statement said the newlyweds, both 32, had wanted to “make a private commitment to each other”.
About 90 per cent of people who propose and get married on the same trip end up having marriages annulled
Mel’s publicist added that they have been “good friends for many years”, denying the marriage was the result of a whirlwind romance.
The couple tied the knot at the The Special Memory Wedding Chapel, one of Las Vegas’s oldest but least conventional venues.
It offers couples drive-through, Red Indian and Elvis-style ceremonies costing from £100 to £300. Last year the chapel’s manager, Kevin Streit, admitted many of his clients regretted their quickie marriages.
“About 90 per cent of people who propose and get married on the same trip end up having marriages annulled,” he said.
This is the second marriage for Mel, who wed dancer Jimmy Gulzar in 1998. The pair became engaged after a 10-week romance but divorced two years later. They have an eight-year-old daughter, Phoenix Chi.
