She has said what many have suspected: She still loves him.
Love or hate her candor on Sunday’s episode of Oprah’s Next Chapter, “Umbrella” singer
Rihanna has owned up to still caring about the man –
Chris Brown – who assaulted her more than three years ago.
“We’ve been working on our friendship again, and now we’re very, very close friends. We built up a trust again,” Rihanna told Oprah.
Earlier this summer, Rihanna, 24, and Brown, 23, were rumored to have met up in St. Tropez in July. During her interview with Oprah, which got emotional around the subject of Brown, Rihanna confirmed that the two did, in fact, reunite during the trip.
“It’s awkward because I still love him,” the singer said. “My stomach drops, and I have to maintain this poker face and not let it get to the outer part of me,” the singer said of seeing Brown again.
In early 2009, an argument between the two, supposedly over a text message, escalated to violence and ended with Rihanna in the hospital getting treated for a split lip and other visible facial injuries. A photo of the bruised singer quickly went viral. And ultimately, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony assault charge and was sentenced to community service, five years' probation and domestic violence counseling, CBS News reports.
If the world felt the assault via the shocking news and photo – Rihanna said she
really felt it, the singer told Oprah. Rihanna said she was hurt the most.
Rihanna (OWN)
“It happened, and it happened to me in front of the world,” said Rihanna, calling the event “embarrassing,” “humiliating” and “hurtful.”
Still, she said, she’s forgiven Brown – who’s currently dating model Karrueche Tran – and what’s more, she still loves Brown. The assault was an accident she attributed to them being young, a staled relationship and Brown needing help.
When asked if Brown was her true love, Rihanna answered: “Absolutely. I think that he was the love of my life,” Rihanna replied. “He was my first love and I see that he loved me the same way.”
What a first love.
It’s the kind of admission that is disappointing to a loving parent but perhaps also offers a glimpse into a part of the singer that needs healing, needs restoration and needs to move on.
The waters of domestic abuse are murkier than those who blame the receivers of the abuse would have people believe. Yesterday, Rihanna’s candor, love it or hate it, reminded many of this. And the hope is that she, a woman in the public eye, takes that candor and reflects on it. That as someone lucky enough to survive that abuse, she gets the help she needs, and emerges completely from those murky waters never to return to others like them in the future.
