[buzzGLOSS] Rihanna 20/20 Interview Shocking, Rihanna Watched Her Father Beat Her Mother

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Lolita Carrico

Rihanna knew about domestic violence because she watched her father beat her mother. The singer told Diane Sawyer on 20/20 tonight that her father hit her mother when she was a child growing up in Barbados.

I always anticipated it happening. At night I wouldn’t want to sleep, because I was too afraid it would happen.

She never went to the hospital, but he broke her nose. She would never go to the hospital…Domestic violence is not somebody that people want anbody to know, so she would just hide it in the house. I always said to myself, ‘I’m never going to date somebody like my dad, never.’

Rihanna not only dated a man who beat her—-she went back to him after a very brutal beating.  But Rihanna has a message for women:

I am strong and it happened to me.  If it happened to me, it could happen to anyone.

The singer says that one of the reasons she has come forward about her story is to help other young women who are in abusive relationships. She doesn’t want other women to make the mistakes she made for love.

Rihanna says Chris Brown needs to accept responsibility for what he did, accept it as a man would. She believes that people can change but she says that people have to want to change.

In her 20/20 interview wit Diane Sawyer, Rihanna says she knows Chris Brown is sorry for what he did but she’s not sure he truly understands the damage he did when he attacked her:

The thing that men don’t realize, when they hit a woman, it’s… the face, the broken arm, the black eye, it’s going to heal. That’s not … the problem. It’s the scar inside. You flashback. You … you remember it all the time. It comes back to you whether you like it or not. And it’s painful. So I don’t think he understood that. They never do.

Rihanna said although her wounds had long healed, she had scars inside that would not heal. The singer told Diane Sawyer that Chris Brown had trouble accepting that the relationship was over.

After the attack, Rihanna briefly reunited with Brown, but said that she never forgave him.  She went to Miami with Brown in March but she realized she made a mistake and broke things off. The details of Brown’s attack are gut-wrenching:

I caught him in a lie. And he wouldn’t tell the truth … I was being more annoyed at that point in our relationship he had to lie about something so stupid. I couldn’t take that he kept lying to me. And he couldn’t take that I wouldn’t drop it. And … it was ugly.

According to the police affidavit, Brown shoved Rihanna into the window of his car, while driving. He punched her several times in the eye and said, “I’m going to beat the s*** out of you when we get home.” When Rihanna tried to call her assistant’s phone, Brown warned, “You just did the stupidest thing ever. I’m going to kill you,” and threw her phone out the window.

Rihanna confirmed the brutal account and acknowledged that Brown bit her and had her in a headlock until she had trouble breathing. She told Sawyer that she did not try to fight back.

I was bleeding. I was swollen in my face. So there was no way of me getting home, except for, my next option was to get out of the car and walk. Start walking in a gown, in a bloody face. So I really don’t know what my plan was. I didn’t have a plan. That whole night was not part of my plan.

I went through … a host of emotions. It was confusing for me. I was still attached by love. But I wasn’t thinking about … the reality of the situation.

In denial, she said her love for Brown clouded her judgment.

You start lying to yourself. … This is a memory you don’t want to have ever again. … the physical wounds go away, you put it in the back of your head and you start lying to yourself subconsciously.

Rihanna said she was “embarrassed” and “humiliated” by the graphic photo of her that was leaked to the press after Brown’s attack, in which her face appears battered and swollen.  According to experts on domestic violence, returning to an abuser is not unusual for victims of domestic violence.

After Miami, she realized she made a mistake and broke things off.