Rihanna Defends Collabs. w/ Chris Brown: "It Made Sense"

[JamesG]

Rihanna Defends Recording with Ex-Boyfriend Chris Brown: "It Made Sense"
Mar 15, 2012
by Kate Stanhope


Rihanna and Chris Brown caused waves last month when the exes released not one, but two musical collaborations. Despite their rocky past — which includes Brown's pleading guilty to assaulting and making threats to his then-girlfriend — Rihanna says he was always the right person for the job.

"I reached out to him about doing 'Birthday Cake' because that's the only person that really... it made sense to do the record," she told Ryan Seacrest on his morning radio show Thursday. "Just as a musician, despite everything else, that was going to be the person."





After pleading guilty to assault in 2009, Brown was sentenced to community labor and five years' probation. The court-ordered restraining order that prevented him from being near Rihanna was reduced a year ago, allowing the two to be in the same room and also talk to one another.

Brown can be heard on a remixed version of Rihanna's track 'Birthday Cake'.

"I thought about rappers, and I've done that so many times, and the hottest R&B artist out right now is Chris Brown," she said. "So I wanted him on the track."





After she asked him to work together, Brown quickly asked her to do the same. Rihanna is featured on his song, 'Turn Up The Music'.

"We did two records. One for my fans. One for his fans, and that way our fans can come together," she said. "There shouldn't be a divide, you know? It's music, and it's innocent."

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Rihanna-...g-1044942.aspx

[Brian Damage]

More like....It made $ense

[catlover79]

I have no words...really. What a great example she is to all the girls and young women out there.

[JamesG]

Rihanna: Why I'm Still in Contact With Chris Brown
April 4, 2012
by Justin Ravitz


In the May issue of ELLE, the chart-topping singer, 24, finally acknowledges -- and sort of explains -- why she's back in contact with ex Chris Brown. Over three years after Brown's violent assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna, the twosome collaborated on two singles -- and have been secretly hooking up for over a year, multiple sources have confirmed to Us Weekly.

"I respect what other people have to say. The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently," cover girl Rihanna tells ELLE of the furious reactions from fans and critics about reconnecting with Brown, 22, despite their brutal past.

"It's very hard for me to accept, but I get it," she says of the criticism. "People end up wasting their time on the blogs or whatever, ranting away, and that's all right. I don't hate them for it."

But Rihanna is standing firm -- and she's not going to apologize. "Because tomorrow I'm still going to be the same person," she says. "I'm still going to do what I want to do."





Still, Brown's February 2009 attack was a turning point for the star, who is now more popular and successful than ever.

"It gave me guns," she says of the trauma. "I was like, well, f***. They know more about me than I want them to know. It's embarrassing. But that was my opening. That was my liberation, my moment of bring it. I wanted people to know who I am. Whatever they take that to be, good or bad, I just want them to know the truth."





Although she's lost a lot of her privacy since then, "I have more freedom the more people know about me," she reasons. "It's like, one less skeleton in the closet, one less burden, one less secret; now you know that, so you can say what you want about it. I don't have anything to hide."





She famously channelled the pain of the assault and the breakup in her 2010 album 'Rated R'.

"I was going through the hardest time of my life. I was angry, sad, confused, torn. I was still in love," she admitted of the dark record. "And I needed to talk about it. That was the only way I could get peace, because it was in my head, and I couldn't leave it there."

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-...#ixzz1r6XCdp5J