8 MILE star Mekhi Phifer has launched a harsh attack on his ex-wife MALINDA WILLIAMS, after she spoke out about his infidelity.

Actress Williams, who has a son with the ER star, blames the actor for their marriage meltdown - and now he's fired back.

He rants, "I was 23 when she got pregnant. You want to do the right thing - what society deems as being the right thing. She wanted a structured family lifestyle that she was used to growing up. The women are dominant matriarchs in her family and the men are subversive, subservient and subdued. Me? I come from a family of men - grown-ass men handling their business.

"It's easy for a woman to say, 'He cheated on me and did this and that.' Look, I'm a very sexual person - I love to make love. In the morning, stink breath? I want to make love. At night after champagne, I want to make love. Women have to let men be men, not walk over them. If you are dealing with a yellow-bellied, no backbone muthaf***a, then okay. I'm a mover and a shaker - a king.

"I didn't want to be home anymore. We had nothing to talk about because she didn't know the people I knew. Any argument that we had, 90 per cent of the time, I didn't know what the f**k she was talking about. There was just tension in the house and she couldn't be sympathetic. I didn't ask her to cook, clean, nothing. I had cleaning ladies, all that s**t.

"But if you want your man to be there with you, you have to be there with him too - a stimulus for a muthaf***a. For most of the relationship, I was the mover and shaker, she was home complaining.

"I was young. I had an ideology of what I was doing, but it wasn't the right thing with that particular person. She's a great mom; I'm a great dad. But we weren't made for each other. You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

11/06/2003 01:28