Rihanna gets why the Chris Brown thing is still such a big deal.
For all the rumours about her love life, Rihanna‘s last actual boyfriend was Chris Brown, with whom she split in 2009.
Brown, her first love, beat her bloody in the back of a rented Lamborghini the night before the 2009 Grammy and apparently left her on the side of the road.
It’s an awful incident that will be associated with 27-year-old Rihanna perhaps forever. The singer says that even though it was six years ago, she’s still being punished for thinking she could make that relationship work.
In 2012, she asked a judge to lift the restraining order against him and they reconciled, briefly.
In the November issue of Vanity Fair, Rihanna talked openly about her relationship with Brown.
“I was that girl,” she told Vanity Fair.
“That girl who felt that as much pain as this relationship is, maybe some people are built stronger than others. Maybe I’m one of those people built to handle shit like this. Maybe I’m the person who’s almost the guardian angel to this person, to be there when they’re not strong enough, when they’re not understanding the world, when they just need someone to encourage them in a positive way and say the right thing.”
She admitted that she believed she could change Brown.
“A hundred per cent. I was very protective of him. I felt that people didn’t understand him. Even after… But you know, you realize after a while that in that situation you’re the enemy.”
Despite the assault being a long way in the past, Rihanna often finds it coming back to haunt her, such as in 2014, when the N.F.L. and TV station CBS decided against using her hit song Run This Town featuring Kanye West and Jay-Z.
Why? Because of an horrific domestic violence scandal involving one of their players, Ray Rice.
“Well, I just never understood that,” she told Vanity Fair, “like how the victim gets punished over and over. It’s in the past, and I don’t want to say ‘get over it,’ because it’s a very serious thing that is still relevant; it’s still real… But, for me, and anyone who’s been a victim of domestic abuse, nobody wants to even remember it. Nobody even wants to admit it. So to talk about it and say it once, much less 200 times, is like… I have to be punished for it?”
Rihanna says she’s single for many reasons. Her schedule, her fame, her suspicion of people’s motives all figure. And she thinks men are afraid to show women love.
“You want them to feel good being a man, but now men are afraid to be men. They think being a real man is actually being a pussy, that if you take a chair out for a lady, or you’re nice or even affectionate to your girl in front of your boys, you’re less of a man. It’s so sick… girls are settling for that, but I won’t. I will wait forever if I have to.”
As for Brown, Rihanna says she doesn’t have any hard feelings.
“I don’t hate him. I will care about him until the day I die. We’re not friends, but it’s not like we’re enemies. We don’t have much of a relationship now.”
Click through to see why RiRi’s too busy for boys.
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I think it's so important to keep discussing this issue, especially in light of Chris Brown's recent Visa dismissal in Australia. I think the public's initial reaction to the abuse was shock and disgust, but as time has gone on, we have become more hardened to it, and a lot of the time I hear people say, "well, why can't we just get over it, it was years ago" - but would you find it so easy if that were your mother or sister or even your partner who had been abused? I think Rihanna is right when she says it still counts and it is still an issue that needs to be discussed, so that we don't get desensitized to it - we need to remain aware that this happens to women of all walks of life, every day. It's also important to recognise that there are men out there who can suffer the same kind of abuse. Rihanna is a woman who is in a good financial situation, who can support herself and managed to get out of her relationship, but never forget the women who have kids to these men, or who have nothing else, and cannot leave... Keep talking about this issue, keep the discussion going. It's still so important.
First time I thought I'd say I agree with Rihanna. Her comments about men being pussys and acting like teenagers in front of their boys to seem cool, is so outdated and boring.