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Ever since that night, Chris Brown has been on the mea culpa tour. But now, in an exclusive interview with ABC’s 20/20, Rihanna has her say about their love affair, the fight that shocked the blogosphere and how she feels about that picture.
I felt like I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears …
—Rihanna, as told to Glamour magazine.
If you have ever watched E! True Hollywood Story, chances are, you already know the outcome. Great fame, greater fallout, stardom and scandal stretched out across headlines. Feb. 7 was the fallout for pop singer Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty; the moment her private life collided head-on with her very public persona. Since the night she was assaulted by her then-boyfriend, singer Chris Brown, after a pre-Grammy Awards party, the two have been divvied up by the media, each made out to play one of two parts—he, the victimizer; she, the victim.
Amid a haze of hearsay and speculation in the months following the incident, Rihanna has been silent. That is, until now.
She appeared Friday night on 20/20 for an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer, sharing her side of the story in the first interview since February’s attack. Sounding dignified and in control, she talked about how she hid after the attack, feeling ashamed and alone.
"I felt very lonely,” she said. “I couldn't even go back to my own house because there were 200 people outside with cameras, paparazzi, journalists, fans, neighbors."
It was the end of a made-for-the-blogosphere romance. Sites like theYBF.com, tracked Chrihanna’s every move and PDA. Award shows, after-parties and romantic getaways all captured on-camera and devoured by the public. Until that night.
The details of what happened, Rihanna said, are “ugly.” After confronting Chris with a text message from another woman, things “escalated into him being violent.”
So violent, she said, that he had to have blacked out as he put her in a headlock, bit and punched her repeatedly. Her voice faltered a bit as she described what happened, but she appeared to hold her emotions in check.
“My next option was to get out the car and walk—start walking in a gown and a bloody face,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a plan. That whole night was not part of my plan.”
So, like Lindsay, Paris and Britney before her, Rihanna watched her pain become media matter for consumption. The Root‘s own Jimi Izrael speculated as to whether the battered photo of Rihanna, which leaked shortly after the attack, should have been made public or not. But, eventually, he, too, said the photo was fair game. Bruised eyes, swollen face, fat lip and all.
“I felt humiliated,” Rihanna said. "I was like, here goes my little bit of privacy.”
But while Rihanna was busy trying to figure things out, the world was watching—and writing about—her road to recovery and the stumbles along the way.
Despite PR strategizing on both sides, family statements, Chris’ lawyer-ing up and issuing an immediate apology, the speculations spread like wildfire and so did the headlines.
Was Rihanna/Chris Brown Debacle A Publicity Stunt? What Will Happen to Chris Brown and Rihanna? Chris Brown, Rihanna Back Together.
Through it all, Rihanna remained surprisingly tight-lipped. When she canceled a concert in the Middle East or returned home to Barbados, when she was photographed about town or strutted across Europe in all-black couture, she said nothing about Chris or the mess made of her image since February. Instead, the TMZ leaks did all the talking for her.
Parody clips of the attack began circulating on YouTube. A “Chris Brown Punch Out” game went viral. Folks even started making T-shirts with slogans like “Rihanna Deserved It!” and “I Beat it Like Chris Brown.”
Somehow a real issue of domestic violence became “spectacle,” as Rihanna said.
And as far as role models go, Rihanna wasn’t a willing poster child for domestic abuse. She didn’t clamor for a PSA appearance or speak out against Chris as he did damage control for his own image, appearing on Larry King Live last month, bowtie clad and full of “I’m sorrys.”
“I just, I didn't talk about it to anyone, to no one,” Rihanna told Sawyer. “Not my friends. Not my family … It's not something that I wanted to relive. It's not something I wanted to think about ... I just put it away in a box ... and just ignored it really."
During Friday night’s interview, Rihanna finally opened up, discussing her own family’s history of domestic abuse, past outbursts from Chris and why she regrets going back to him only three weeks after the attack.
Her eyes teared up just a bit as she explained how she couldn’t bear being held responsible for other young girls going back to their abusive boyfriends because of her. “Don’t react off of love,” she said. “Eff love.”
In the blogosphere, some cynics dismissed her 20/20 appearance as a plug for her upcoming album, Rated R. (Brown, who also has his album, Graffiti, set to release early December, also conducted a one-on-one interview the same night with MTV’s Sway.)
Rihanna cited another reason for breaking her silence:
"I knew I had to do this in order to move on for me and in order for my fans to move on with me because it would always be a question in their mind … I don't want that five years from now every time [fans] see Rihanna, they think of Chris Brown beating me.”
But one Twitter bug essentially said just that, dubbing the battered songstress “tha 2009 Robin Givens.”
“That's not who I am,” Rihanna said in the interview. “It's just one thing that happened to me.”
Saaret E. Yoseph is a writer and assistant editor for The Root.
Comments
Either a woman being beat by a man is a worse tragedy than a man being beat by a woman because women are the weaker sex, or both are equally reprehensible because men and women are equals and both are held to the same standards of behavior.
Do I condone him busting her up like that? Absolutely not. But don't tell me that if he was the one who verbally tore her a new one and she busted his face up good for it... that a lot of these same women who are saying the motivation doesn't matter, Chris Brown deserves this that & the next, it was an inappropriately extreme response wouldn't be voicing VERY different opinions. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see amusement, his manhood being questioned, and of course there would be comments that he should have watched his mouth if he knew his woman had such a hot temper.
You can't have it both ways. Equals or weaker. And for the record, while there are physical differences between the build of the average man and the average woman (since I'm sure someone is going to feel it necessary to point out the obvious), "equality" in this context refers to the equal responsibility to mentally assess that initiating a violent exchange with a physical superior (male OR female) is a foolhearty act.
Hey, I think certain female wrestlers & bodybuilders have manly attributes and are unattractive in certain ways. Would I rudely tell any of them that to their face if I met them? No. Because if I got the crap beat out of me I would deserve it for being so stupid. And rightfully so. They would be no less guilty for administering said asswhuppin and as such should be dealt with appropriately, but it would still be recognized that I did something dumb and inadvisable.
As equals, why shouldn't that be a shared consequence?
This is really a great stuff for sharing.keep it up .Thanks for sharing,
I agree that a man shouldn't hit a women. However, I also believe that women shouldn't use that as license to do whatever they want. People have this image in there head of the small fragile lady slapping wildly at the big bad man. There was a time when girls didn't really fight, and when they did, it consisted mostly of scratching and hair pulling. Those days are gone. Girls fight now. They punch. I have female friends that are quick to haul off and punch their man. Yes, they are female and are not as strong as a man. Does getting punched in the face by one of them still hurt. Probably. Women stay in abusive relationships all the time. We don't blame them since they are the victim. However, men can fall into the same trap. When you have a relationship where the female is the abuser, it seems inevitable that eventually she will end up getting hit. You can't hide behind "you can't hit me because I'm female" forever. Eventually, you're going to catch that man on a bad day, and he's going to strike back. When all is said and done, everything would be so much easier if everyone would just keep their hands to themselves.
Why didn't Chris press charges against Rihanna if she assaulted him first? I haven't been keeping up with the saga, but I don't remember hearing anything in the police report, or Brown's court hearing, or the press about Rihanna assaulting Chris before he beat her bloody.
Are you people serious? Whether she released a new CD or not the fact still remains that Chris Brown beat her. I mean let's not condone his actions. Chris beat Rihanna. You people really need to develop a soul and remember THAT IT IS NOT RIGHT FOR ANY MAN TO PUT HIS HAND ON A WOMAN!!!
@lullabyoluv96
Sweetie, Chris Brown assaulted her untill she was swollen and bleeding then abandoned her on a dark street after midnight.
@Glo4u
Thats not realistic. Abusers don't tend to be reasonable people. Conflict is inevitable in life and people in relationships should not have to leave the zip code and phone in their concerns to avoid being beaten.
Bad people don't walk around in black trenchcoats and top hats laughing menacingly for no reason. You can't always tell untill they reveal their true nature, when their angry, frustrated, or jealous. By then, it's usually too late. It can happen to anyone, the issue is, can you spot the signs early and move away before it happens or stay away after it does. She learned and she moved on.
She gave the same story she gave in the police report, she was poised, sincere, and thoughtful. She was clearly assaulted and i commend her for TAKING HER TIME AND REALLY THINKING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT SHE LEARNED FROM THE SITUATION BEFORE SHE RAN OUT TO THE MEDIA TO SATISFY THE LOOKY-LOOS AND NOSEY PEOPLE. SHE ALSO RESPECTED THE LEGAL PROCESS AND LET THINGS GET DETERMINED IN THE COURT OF LAW INSTEAD OF THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION.
To me, that makes her incredibly beleivable and sincere. Shes's only 21 years old and she was not only brutally assaulted but violated after the fact by fame-obsessed policewomen when they released that confidential photo/evidence.
And just think, Rihanna's latest CD has just been released... Wow!!! What a cool coincidence!!! LMFAO!!!!
How' many times have I seen a brutha cuaght lying by his woman. Then she goes into "the mode", as I called it that I've seen many black women I know go into, that you aint this, you aint that, blah blah blah. I will do this I will do that, blah anger....slight push, harder push and then the slap. We all know this is all to familiar. The difference is most black men including me walk away, Chris however did the wrong thing and reacted, he went off and shouldn't have done. We all know that she didn't just ask about the text message and let it go, he didn't blackout and have an out of body experience like he tried to say on Larry King. For years we've been testing the boudaries of our relationships, and it's become more and more dangerous to woman. We've been encouraging, burning a man's clothes, I'll bust the windows out of your car......If the tables were turned and a man asked a woman about a text message, got mad and pushed her, or slapped or or burned her clothes and busted here windows, we'd all think that woman was in danger.
Teach our daughters, that yes men will lie, yes they will make you mad, but it is not wise or acceptable to put your hands on another person.
Teach our sons to be honest, if you don't want to be tied down, then say that, stop dragging women along pretending to be faithful, be real.
DON'T PUT YOUR HANDS ON A WOMAN, leave and call the cops if she gives you that angry woman push or slap. The ramifications for you are much more than her, there are no consequences for woman in this regard, however you will have to face a system that is already waiting to eat you alive anyway.
Okay so she caught Chris in a lie, obviously not the first time. My question is why instead of getting into a confrontation with him why did she not wait until she was at home and maybe send him a text, saying can't stand the lying, must move on. Seems to me that would have been the mature thing to do. It's never a good idea to get into a confrontation with any one when emotions can run that high, and she obviously knew that they could. She is young I understand that and maybe thats the reason this situation happenend in the first place, seems to me there were no good parenting going on while they were growing up otherwise she should have anticipated what could happen. As for Chris even though he had grown up in a household where domestic violence was commonplace he should have walked away no matter how much she may have pushed him about his lying.
How stupid can it be? I am wondering if Rihanna would talk about her brawl with Chris if she is not coming out with a new CD. I know I cannot be fooled. She waited this long to break her silence? How many women have been victims of abuse since the incident happened? Now she wants to talk about her saga?
Why not setup a Foundation to benefit Domestic Abuse victims? Why not give out money or support Abuse victims? Why not reach out to victims of all kinds of domestic violence and speak to them? I guess that is why Celebrities rule America.
Chris had apologized about 5 times. She is not satisfied with it I guess. Sounds like she still wants him. Why can't she move on and let Chris alone? I just hope after all these she don't end up like Britney Spears....moving from one guy to another.