Rihanna gave an extremely candid interview about her past relationship with Chris Brown, explaining why she briefly reunited with him in 2012 after he got arrested for assaulting her in 2009 and how the media’s coverage of it affected her.
Rihanna said she feels when she’s asked about the incident “200 times,” that she’s somehow being “punished” for it over and over and forced to relive it.
“I just never understood that, like how the victim gets punished over and over,” she told Vanity Fair. “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.”
She added, “So I can't just dismiss it like it wasn't anything, or I don't take it seriously. 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.
The “American Oxygen” singer also explained her reasoning to get back together with him a few years later, saying she felt “very protective” of him and “almost the guardian angel.”
"I was that girl who felt that, as much pain as this relationship is, maybe some people are built stronger than others," she said. "Maybe I'm one of those people built to handle [things] like this.”
However, it ultimately couldn’t work out because the incident never goes away in the domestic abuse victim’s mind.
"You want the best for them, but if you remind them of their failures, or if you remind them of bad moments in their life, or even if you say I'm willing to put up with something, they think less of you - because they know you don't deserve what they're going to give,” she explained. "And if you put up with it, maybe you are agreeing that you [deserve] this, and that's when I finally had to say, 'Uh-oh, I was stupid thinking I was built for this.' Sometimes you just have to walk away."
She went to admit they’re not friends or enemies now, but she will "care about him until the day I die.”