Chris Brown opens up: I still love Rihanna — but we hit each other a lot

Before Grammy night in 2009, Chris Brown and Rihanna were perceived to be a loving couple but a nasty, much publicised physical fight changed the narrative of their affair.

For the first time, Brown has fully opened up about the events of the night when he was arrested and made headlines around the world as a woman-beater.

In a clip from his new documentary ‘Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life,’ the singer said a woman he was romantically involved with was responsible for the friction between he and Rihanna.

According to Brown, he confessed to the ‘Wild Thoughts’ singer about his dalliance with the unnamed woman and “she hated me. After that, I tried everything. She didn’t care, she just didn’t trust me after that.”

He continued: “From there, it just went downhill because it would be fights, it would be verbal fights, physical fights as well.

“I still love Rihanna, but I’m just going to be honest – we would fight each other, she would hit me, I would hit her, but it never was OK. It was always a point to where we talk about it like, ‘What the f**k are we doing.”

“If I go on stage, I got a scratch on my face, and I’ve got to explain it, like ‘Oh I fell’, or if you got a scar or a bruise, you got to put make up on.”

Brown said although he had warned the woman in question not to attend the same events as him, she approached he and Rihanna at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy Awards party.

He said: “I made sure the person I was involved with before, I said hey, you can’t come around to these places. And the person comes in, comes right to the table and says, “Hey what’s up y’all.” And I already know it’s an issue, so I say “Hey cool” and I keep it moving.

“I look over at Rihanna and she’s bawling, she’s crying. She got over it. She started drinking a little bit, we both was drinking a little bit. We was tipsy, laughing and then we left.

“Like I remember she tried to kick me, just like her beating sh*t, but then I really hit her. With a closed fist, like I punched her, and it busted her lip, and when I saw it I was in shock, I was “f**k, why did I hit her like that?”

“So from there she’s…spitting blood in my face, it raised me even more. It’s a real fight in the car, and we driving in the street.”

After his arrest, Brown pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault and served probation for his crime.