Rihanna cries over ex-boyfriend Chris Brown: “He needed help”
Pop singer Rihanna broke down in an interview with TV host Oprah Winfrey, telling her that she felt protective of former boyfriend Chris Brown after he beat her up back in 2009, concerned that everyone would think of him as a bad guy.
According to reports, during a rare emotional interview with Oprah Winfrey that is set to air on Sunday, “Umbrella” singer Rihanna went into the details about the highly publicized assault that went down more than three years ago — telling Winfrey that the days and weeks after the battery left her ashamed and confused.
“It was embarrassing, it was humiliating,” Rihanna told Oprah Winfrey in the interview, excerpts of which were released on Thursday. “I lost my best friend. Everything I knew switched, switched in a night, and I couldn’t control that.”
Rihanna added, “It was a weird, confusing space to be in. Because as angry as I was – as angry and hurt and betrayed – I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help. And who’s going to help him?”
“Nobody’s going to say he needs help. Everybody’s going to say he’s a monster, without looking at the source. And I was more concerned about him,”
“I lost my best friend … everything I knew switched … switched in a night and I couldn’t control that,” 24-year-old pop star Rihanna added.
Previous reports have stated that Rihanna was left battered and bruised from the beating initiated by Chris Brown in Los Angeles on the eve of the Grammy Awards back in February 2009. Brown, who was 19 years old at the time and an R&B singer rising to fame, entered a guilty plea to the assault charges and was subsequently sentenced to five years probation, community service and domestic violence counseling.
Chris Brown gave a public apology after the battery incident with Rihanna, but his music career and public image has been tainted since the incident. After his career took a dive, it has since recovered, and he even won his first Grammy Award earlier this year for the hit album “F.A.M.E”.
Rihanna has rarely opened up emotionally in public about the events of that night.
TV host Winfrey, who interviewed Rihanna in the Hollywood star’s home in Barbados, said in a promotion for Sunday’s show that she had started with a preconceived idea of Rihanna, basing her notions on the provocative music videos and sexually-charged lyrics of the singer, but her view changed quickly during the interview.
“I thought she was going to be kind of a badass, kind of a hard-edged rocker, pop woman. Nothing could have been further from the truth,” Oprah Winfrey said of Rihanna.