Mel B Believes the 'Trauma' She Endured From Her Abusive Ex-Husband Will 'Never' Go Away, But She Has 'Tools' to Help Her Heal

Melanie "Mel B" Brown is pulling back the curtain on what life is like after leaving an unhealthy marriage.

Though the Spice Girls singer divorced Stephen Belafonte after he allegedly physically and emotionally abused her, the mom-of-three revealed she's still dealing with the effects years later.

"I think it’s so important to honestly say what happens when you leave abuse, because it’s not as easy as some people may think," the star, 48, explained in a new magazine interview.

"For example, my mother would say, ‘What’s wrong with you? You’re fine now. You’ve left him.’ And I’d be going, ‘Yeah, but now I’ve got to pick up the pieces and I’ve got to deal with the shame and the guilt, and I want to protect my kids,’" Brown explained. "And I don’t want to block out what happened because I did that for a little bit, and you get PTSD."

"Trauma from abuse never goes. So you need to be able to recognize it, be kind to yourself and just quiet that voice, which you can do," she noted. "You have to just basically say to yourself, ‘It’s not your fault and he was the problem, not you.’ And you just have to heal yourself. And that’s going to be a lifetime, a long journey for me."

The singer admitted she'll "never be fully there, but I am on the right path, and I have the tools to kind of get myself through those dark times."

Brown and Belafonte, 48, separated in 2016 and finalized their divorce the following year after getting married in 2007.

In a previous interview, the "Wannabe" vocalist said she "tried to leave" the film producer, "six or seven times, [but] I went back due to fear or blackmail."

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She also noted she would go back to him because she had no one else to turn to, as his abuse left her isolated and in a bad spot financially.

"You think, 'What am I going to do if I leave? I haven't spoken to my mum in weeks.' Then it's months, then years," she spilled. "It happens so gradually."

Though Brown swore she would "never" marry again, she changed her mind when she met now-fiancé Rory McPhee.

"He was just there patiently waiting, always there to give me a hair treatment, always there to talk. He’s a great listener. And he just became more and more of a friend, and more and more important in my life," she gushed. "It’d been a long time that anybody was that kind to me. I wasn’t looking for intimacy or anything like that because I was still suffering a lot from PTSD. And he was just patient."

People interviewed Brown.