The Spice Girls member is reportedly happy to be able to put her bitter legal battle with Lorraine Gilles behind without having to face ex-husband Stephen Belafonte in court.

• Apr 12, 2019

AceShowbiz - Mel B (Melanie Brown) has reportedly settled her defamation case with former nanny Lorraine Gilles out of court for $2.3 million (£1.8 million) after a bitter legal battle.

During her messy divorce battle with husband Stephen Belafonte, the Spice Girls singer claimed he impregnated Gilles, who she called a "prostitute" and urged her to get an abortion after Mel refused to let her and her child live with them.

She also claimed Gilles was her secret lover for many years, and that she was extorting her with sex tape footage of the duo with Belafonte. Mel filed restraining orders against them both to stop them from distributing the tapes, but this order was later dissolved.

Following her divorce, Gilles sued the mother-of-three for defamation, with Mel facing a potential legal bill of $6.5 million (£5 million) if she had lost the case. The singer would also have had to call on her celebrity pals, such as Simon Cowell and Heidi Klum, as witnesses at LA Superior Court if the case had gone to court, with very intimate details of her sex life being discussed in the court.

So Mel is said to be relieved after settling the case for almost $2.6 million (£2 million) - with the deal also meaning she doesn't have to face ex Belafonte in court.

"Mel was just happy to clear this mess up once and for all," a source told the Daily Mirror. "Things were said in court papers in the heat of a divorce, which exploded into this lawsuit. But in recent weeks their frost has thawed, with them even meeting in the same room to work out their differences."

The source added that the recent headlines about Mel's sex with bandmate Geri Halliwell had shown her just how much public interest there was in her personal life.

"After the Geri controversy, the last thing she wanted was the rest of the band on the stand being probed all about her sex life," the insider concluded.