A couple of weeks back, a British newspaper invited me to write a piece arguing that we should all forgive Chris Brown and defending Rihanna's decision to maintain a relationship with him. My first thought was, "Are you out of your damn mind? What a total fuckery it is that you thought I'd be the right person to be to tell your readers, "Forget about the fighting; Breezy and RiRi 4EVR!"Come today, and I'm watching the Oprah interview with Rihanna that everyone has been rumbling about, aired last night in full. For the first time in ages, I'm empathizing with, rather than frustrated with, RiRi. It makes for genuinely uncomfortable viewing. I mean, it's both awk and depressing:"It happened to me in front of the world. It was embarrassing, it was humiliating, it was hurtful. I can't tell people how to feel about it, they're entitled to feel angry, because it wasn't a good thing that happened. I have [forgiven him]. We love each other and we probably always will."Now, I think we all face-palmed when, post-assault, she appeared on Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie", writhing around bleeting "I like the way it hurts". Then, fast forward to 2012, and she's got the guy who pummelled her face in, guesting on "Birthday Cake", a song essentially about her getting doggied. Double face-palm. The glaringly obvious gripe is what kind of impression is she sending to her fans?Still, yes she is a massive popstar with a terrifying amount of influence, but after watching this I realize that I'm bored of those who keep haranguing her for not doing the "right" thing. The "right" thing being publically cutting ties with Brown, setting up a domestic abuse charity, and launching it with a finger-snapping empowerment song about "not needing no man".But, could you not argue, that the right thing is seeing someone of such a high profile talking honestly, in a way that might make one of us norms in a similar shitty situation, not feel like they're such an inadequate freak? Is it our popstars' responsibility to be a good role model or to be human? Do they need an agenda, or just a life?Anyway, you can watch bits from the interview beneath. They made me think, yo.
Advertisement