Rihanna "Ashamed" By Chris Brown Assault, Says "Love Is Blind" in New Interview

Rihanna broke her silence and described how her relationship with Chris Brown turned violent in the first of two interviews with ABC News today on Good Morning America. "This happened to me and it could happen to anybody," Rihanna told Diane Sawyer. "There's a lot of women who experienced what I did, but not in the public. I just thought, 'There goes my little bit of privacy.' " (Watch a clip of the GMA interview, below.)

Rihanna and Chris Brown's Grammy Weekend: Photos of the days and hours before the infamous fight.

According to Sawyer, Rihanna will describe precisely what happened on February 8th in Brown's rented Lamborghini in the second part of the interview, which airs Friday night on 20/20. In tomorrow's segment, Rihanna tells Sawyer, "That's all I kept thinking about the whole time. When's it going to stop, when's it going to stop?" when asked about the assault.

This morning, Rihanna did discuss why she was "ashamed" by the incident, and why she remained silent in the weeks following Brown's arrest. "I fell in love with that person, and it's embarrassing that's the type of person that I fell in love with. So far in love, so unconditional, that I went back," Rihanna said, confirming rumors that she and Brown did in fact reconnect after the assault. "It's completely normal to go back. You start lying to yourself. The minute the physical wounds go away, you want this whole thing to go away, this is a memory you don't want to have ever again."

It wasn't until Rihanna saw the impact her decision had on her fans that she finally broke away from Brown. "That's not what I want to teach people. When I realize that my selfish decision for love could result into some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part. ... Even if Chris would never hit me again, who's to say their boyfriends won't," Rihanna, with tears in her eyes, told Sawyer. "I didn't realize how much of an impact I had on these girls' lives until it happened. It was a wake-up call."

Check out photos of Rihanna's fiercest looks, onstage and off.

Rihanna offered up one more piece of advice to her fans involved in abusive relationships. "Don't react off of love. 'F' love," Rihanna said. "Come out of the situation and look at it third person and for what it really is and then make your decision, because love is so blind."

Brown, who will appear in an MTV News interview that airs Friday at 6 p.m., told MTV, "My thoughts [when I look back on it now] is like, 'Why did it happen?' Like, 'What was I thinking? What is wrong with you?' " Both stars have albums hitting stores in the coming weeks: Rihanna's Rated R is due November 23rd, and Brown's Graffiti has been moved up to December 8th.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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