‘Idol’ winner Fantasia Barrino accused of being a homewrecker

File photo / AP PhotoAmerican Idol winner Fantasia Barrino smiles during an interview in her home in Charlotte, N.C., in a file photo from June 16, 2004.

North Carolina resident Paula Cook is accusing Fantasia Barrino, the 2004 “American Idol,” of having an affair with her husband and making a sex tape. Paula Cook separated from her husband Antwaun Cook, in June. She filed the divorce documents last week in Mecklenburg County District Court seeking child custody, alimony and other monetary support. [CNN]

In North Carolina, adultery is still a crime. [WCNC]

“You can sue that third party. Now most of the cases involve sex, it doesn’t have to be sex, it can be something much lower,” says Professor Beau Baez from The Charlotte School of Law.

Baez told WCNC that North Carolina is one of seven states where a “home wrecker” has something to worry about. They can be sued.

Barrino told Paula Cook:

“He don’t want you. Maybe the next time you get a husband you’ll know how to keep him. That’s why he is here with me.

Barrino met Antwuan Cook in August 2009 at the cellphone store where he worked. According to the documents, the singer took Antwuan to Atlanta, Miami, New York, L.A. and Barbados over the course of the alleged affair. [Los Angeles Times]

Apparently, Barrino and Antwuan Cook haven’t hid their relationship. She proudly displays a tattoo of his name on her left shoulder.

Fantasia Denies Being a Homewrecker

Fantasia is denying accusations that she’s a homewrecker after she was cited as the other woman in divorce papers filed last week.

Paula Cook filed for divorce from her husband Antwaun Cook last week, accusing Fantasia of having an affair with her husband.

But the former American Idol contestant’s manager, Brian Dickens, is defending his client, telling E! Online: “Fantasia is certain that she is not responsible for the deterioration of the Cooks’ marriage.”

In her divorce petition filed last Wednesday, Paula Cook singles out Fantasia’s “covert adulterous affair” with her husband as the reason for their breakup, stating that Fantasia once told her over the phone, “He don’t want you. Maybe the next time that you get a husband you’ll know how to keep him. That’s why he is here with me.”

Paula claims that the affair began in August 2009 and that her “Husband and Ms. Barrino have at times recorded their illicit sexual activity.”

“Fantasia will weather this storm with the dignity and grace that she has exemplified throughout a life in which she has repeatedly overcome obstacles and challenges,” continued her manager’s statement regarding the allegations. “Fantasia’s faith in God, herself and family remain as strong as ever.”

Paula Cook ‘Humiliated’ By Husband’s Alleged Affair with Fantasia Barrino

“She is saddened and disheartened by the end of her marriage,” Cook’s lawyer tells PEOPLE

Photo: SDFL/Splash News Online

All Paula Cook wanted was to have a happy life with husband Antwaun and their children – but her husband’s alleged affair with Fantasia Barrino ruined all that, according to Paula’s attorney.

“She is saddened and disheartened by the end of her marriage,” divorce attorney Tamela Wallace tells PEOPLE. “She’s embarrassed, and humiliated and distressed by the lack of respect that was shown for her marriage by Ms. Barrino.”

Pictures surfaced Friday of the American Idol season 3 winner meeting with Antwaun Cook in a local Charlotte, N.C., park – and being filmed by video cameras presumably for her VH1 reality show, Fantasia for Real.

“It’s that kind of brazen behavior that Mrs. Cook has had to endure for the last 11 months, until June of this year,” Wallace says. “This is something that has caused her emotional distress, pain, anguish.”

According to court documents, Paula had planned a wedding anniversary trip to New Orleans for herself and her husband Antwaun, and ended up going alone. While she was there, she was informed that her husband was having an affair with Barrino.

“She wanted nothing more than to have a happy family with her husband and her children. And she’s not been able to do that,” Wallace says. Her attorney describes Paula, a special education teacher at a local high school, as “just the quintessential soccer mom.”

Wallace wouldn’t confirm that her client might sue Barrino, 26, under the much talked about “home wrecker” law. But, she says, her client is “weighing her options.”

Barrino’s lawyer, Gena Morris, told PEOPLE that: “[Paula Cook] has threatened via her lawyers to me to sue Fantasia.”

Morris called the so called “home wrecker” laws “a comical irony … because they arise out of laws when women were property of men.”

Paula’s lawyer emphasizes that her client is a private citizen who didn t ask for her husband’s affair to make national news.

“The only mistake she made was marrying a man who Ms. Barrino felt like she was entitled to have,” Wallace says. “She is having to defend her marriage, when she didn’t ask for this.”

Barrino’s lawyer added, “Paula Cook intentionally chose to turn her private legal matter into a public spectacle by pleading in a tabloid manner. None of the allegations against Fantasia were factually necessary to support Mrs. Cook’s claims against Mr. Cook. Mrs. Cook could have elected to resolve her case out of the public eye.”