Dear Gossips,
PEOPLE.com posted an article last night about Chris Brown and what he says about the night he beat the sh-t out of Rihanna. I read it just as I was about to go to sleep. And then I couldn’t sleep so, like a good friend, I sent it to Duana so that she couldn’t sleep either.
Basically Chris says that Rihanna was always a jealous girlfriend because she found out that he had sex with someone before they got together and from then on, her trust issues undermined their love.
“She hated me after that. I tried everything, she didn’t care. She just didn’t trust me after that. From there, it just went downhill because there were too many verbal fights, physical fights as well. Mutual sides.”
MUTUAL SIDES? Interesting choice of words. Who does that remind you of? Mutual sides, “many sides”. F-CK YOU and all your sides.
From there, everything he says, every sentence begins with how she supposedly used to hit him first. How she was drinking on the night he attacked her. How she tried to kick him. How she pretended to throw the keys out the car. How she spit in his face. And how terrible he feels whenever he sees the photo.
Really? Because you’ve seen the photo, right? We all saw that goddamn photo. PEOPLE.com does not show us the photo. Instead, what we get from PEOPLE.com is Chris’s memory of detail upon detail about how Rihanna was jealous, how Rihanna was violent, and Chris is sorry. And there’s a photo. But not that photo. The photo they do include to accompany story that looks like this:
You read the article, presented to us from Chris Brown’s side, about how Rihanna was petty and vindictive, juxtaposed with his “remorse”, and then they throw up a picture of them together (which wasn’t even taken the night of the beating) and you see her wearing attitude on her face – while he’s sitting there in a WHITE SUIT – and what, exactly, are you trying to say, PEOPLE MAGAZINE?
What the F-CK are you trying to say? What the F-CK are you telling the MiniVan Majority? Is the takeaway here supposed to be that, “Oh, Chris Brown, he’s not so bad. Rihanna was to blame too”? Since when did anyone need PEOPLE Magazine to come out for Team Breezy? Why is PEOPLE Magazine sanitising Chris Brown? What are they telling women who might be out there struggling in abusive situations and barely surviving?
I am tempted to remind you, visually, of what Chris Brown did and attach to this post the photo that he describes as “that’s not me”. This is probably not a good idea. So instead, I’m attaching a different photo of Rihanna, one that she posted herself. This is Rihanna, waving away the bullsh-t. Because humanising an abusive man shouldn’t be the story here. The story here should be about how this woman came through it. The story here should be that if this is your story, if this has been your experience, you can come through it too. There are people who can help you.
If you are a victim of domestic violence or if anyone you know is being abused, please contact the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and/or Shelter Safe in Canada.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
