Rihanna makes excuses for Chris Brown beating: ‘He needed help’

Although Rihanna publicly reconciled with Chris Brown earlier this year, it seems she never really fell out with him after he physically assaulted her the night before the Grammys in February 2009. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey for her OWN network (which will air on August 19), the "Where Have You Been" singer got very emotional when talking about the backlash Brown deservedly received after the vicious attack.

"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?" she tearfully told Winfrey. "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."

Rihanna, 24, also got candid about how despondent she became without her boyfriend of nearly two years. Although she reportedly wanted to stay with Brown, her management wouldn't allow it because it would look bad. "I lost my best friend," she explained to Winfrey during the interview, which took place in her native Barbados. "Everything I knew switched, switched in a night and I couldn't control that." Although the public took her side following the incident, Rihanna said she didn't always appreciate the microscope that came along with it. "And [the loss of Brown was] not easy to interpret on camera, not with the world watching."

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