She says she would hate her family and friends to get the idea film producer Stephen Belafonte is some kind of psycho.
Scary Spice Mel admits she was devastated by the Mirror's revelations that he had battered ex-girlfriend Nicole Contreras.
But the 32-year-old, mum to Phoenix Chi, eight, and Angel, four months, defended his reputation and told how he has had group therapy and counselling.
She says: "Everything I stand for is about being a strong, independent woman, so for him to be seen as a wife beater is devastating for me because he's not - he never has been."
Mel, who married Belafonte, 32, in June after a whirlwind romance, claims she knew of his past and says he is a changed man.
She tells Hello! magazine: "They're trying to make him out to be this aggressive, violent, woman batterer and he's not. If you read those police reports, they never say he physically beat up a woman."
She adds: "The only thing I don't like is that my friends and family read this and go into shock-horror mode, thinking, 'Oh, she's married a psychopath!'."
The Mirror told how Belafonte lashed out at Contreras, the mother of his three-year-old daughter Giselle, in a drunken fury in May 2003. He was put on probation and ordered to attend a domestic violence programme.
Mel revealed that when he proposed he hid a ring in her drink.
She says: "I took one big, deep breath and said, 'Yes'. As well as going, 'Thank you God! Don't let me down. Not for the third time'.""
Celebs and Bubs
Will Paris and Benji last?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed