Chris Brown is opening up in a new documentary about his former relationship with Rihanna.
In a preview of Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life, which was released on Aug. 8, the 28-year-old R&B singer talks about the events that led to the altercation with Rihanna prior to the 2009 GRAMMY Awards. Brown said that he met the "Work" singer when they were both teenagers, and recalls in the documentary that things were never the same after he admitted to her that he had slept with another woman early on in their relationship.
"After that, my trust was lost with her. She hated me after that," he says. "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. We would fight each other. She would hit me, I would hit her and it never was OK."
Brown claims that he and Rihanna even discussed how unhealthy their relationship had become. "There was always a point where we'd talk about it like, 'What the f**k are we doing?' Like, 'I don't like you slapping me,'" he remembers. "If I go onstage I got a scratch on my face and I gotta explain it, like, 'Oh, no I fell.' If you got a scar or a bruise, you gotta put makeup on."
He adds, "I'm not ever trying to put my hands on any female."
Brown says things escalated when the woman he had slept with approached him at Clive Davis' GRAMMY party the night before the awards show. "[Rihanna] starts going off, she throws the phone," he claims. "'I hate you.' Starts hitting me. We're in a little Lamborghini. She's fighting me. I'm like, 'Look, I'm telling you the truth, I swear' ...She hits me a couple of more times and it doesn't go from translation to, 'Let's sit down, I'm telling you the truth.' It goes to, 'Now, I'm going to be mean, be evil.'"
That is when Brown says he got physical with Rihanna. "I remember she tried to kick me, but then I really hit her, with a closed fist, I punched her. I busted her lip," he says. "When I saw it, I was in shock. I was like, 'F**k, why the hell did I hit her?'" He says that was when Rihanna allegedly spit blood in his face and he became "enraged even more."
Brown claims he pulled over and Rihanna pretended to throw his car keys out to get away from him. When he went to look for them, he says she started yelling, "Help, he's trying to kill me."
In 2009, Brown was arrested for domestic violence, and subsequently charged with felony assault for attacking Rihanna. He pleaded guilty, completed the court-mandated community service and is now off probation.
"I look back at that picture and I'm, like, that's not me, bro, that's not me. I hate it to this day. That's going to haunt me forever," Brown says of the incident. "I felt like a f**king monster."
