Mel B secured a legal victory in her ongoing dispute with ex-husband Stephen Belafonte, but the ruling did not necessarily end the fight.
A Florida judge dismissed Belafonte’s defamation lawsuit against the Spice Girls star after finding that Mel did not have sufficient connections to the state for the case to proceed there. However, the judge dismissed the case without prejudice, leaving Belafonte free to pursue his claims elsewhere.
Stephen Belafonte’s defamation case was dismissed without prejudice in Florida
As per TMZ, the judge concluded that Florida did not have sufficient jurisdiction over Mel simply because people in the state may have read statements from her memoir.
Belafonte had argued that claims in Mel’s book harmed his reputation and cost him business opportunities in Florida. The court ruled that those alleged effects did not create a sufficient connection between Mel and the state to justify keeping the case there.
The dismissal gave Mel a temporary legal victory, but the ruling came with an important limitation.
Because the judge dismissed the case without prejudice, Belafonte could potentially pursue the defamation claims in a different jurisdiction.
Belafonte originally sued Mel in 2024 after she publicly accused him of abuse in her memoir Brutally Honest. She later repeated some of those allegations publicly.
Belafonte denied that he abused Mel.
He also disputed an allegation involving a 2012 incident in which Mel claimed he struck her with a closed fist after she flirted with Usher. Belafonte called that allegation a “complete fabrication.”
The latest ruling did not determine whether Mel’s allegations were true or whether Belafonte’s defamation claims had merit.
Instead, the Florida court focused on whether it had jurisdiction over Mel in connection with the dispute.
That distinction means Mel won this particular round without receiving a final resolution of the broader legal fight.
For now, the Florida case has ended, but the “without prejudice” dismissal leaves open the possibility that Stephen Belafonte could continue pursuing his claims in another jurisdiction.
