Rihanna: Abuse Real or a Cover-up?

Back in 2009 there was the report of Rihanna, an up and coming music star, being abused by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, an already big pop star.  Yes we all saw the pictures and many of us hated Chris Brown, but were we right?  Did we really look at all sides of the story or did we just see some damsel in distress?

Rihanna scored quite a few interviews to explain her ordeal and how she was dealing with the pain and suffering that was caused her by the hands of Chris Brown.  I have to wonder just how sorry she was that she went through “nine episodes” of abuse before she left.  I know many people are probably wondering why I would have room to talk, but I am also the victim of an abusive relationship.  One that I don’t agree should have happened, but did, and now I am living each day forgiving and trying to forget. 

Cover of Rated R

Rihanna stated, “People can learn from that, I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn’t heard.  Now I can speak for those women“, when she was a guest on Good Morning America.  Within the last two years following this heart-wrenching story, the broken down and abused Rhianna has flourished into something of a role model for young women everywhere while Chris Brown’s reputation has been tarnished and he has even been nixed from performances do to the media outpouring. 

Image via Wikipedia

After the release of her album Rated R I wondered if she was just rebounding from the stress and trauma that she claimed she endured while dating Chris Brown, but the more I listened to the lyrics of her songs, I wasn’t so sure.  Rude Boy set off a red flag in my mind with lyrics like “can you get it up”, “is you big enough”, and “like the way you pull my hair”.  I was concerned that maybe she wasn’t expressing herself in the most appropriate way.  I gave it the benefit of the doubt seems how she seemed to be at least expressing herself and she did receive an apology from Chris Brown about his behavior.

With the release of her new album Loud I grew a bit more concerned and began to change just how I viewed her as an artist and her debacle with Chris Brown.  Here is a supposed role model talking about “now the pain is my pleasure” and “feels so good being bad” in her new song S&M.  As soon as I finished listening to the CD I threw it in the garbage.  Here is a woman that not but two years ago told the world that she wanted to be an abuse advocate for women and she creates crap like this.  How about her Skin song with lyrics like “I like it rough”, granted we are all entitled to choose the way we like certain aspects of our lives, but she just got done destroying a mans life because he was rough. 

Image via Amazon

Whether you want my opinion or not, I believe that her song Man Down has a lot to do with saying she is sorry, maybe in a round-about way to Chris Brown.  Who knows maybe those whips and chains she claims to like in S&M were just how she got those bruises in the first place.  Maybe it got a bit out of hand and Chris Brown’s little love tap turned into something a bit more undesirable and the only way to play it off was to say he beat her.  Whatever happened is their business but if she wants to be a role model for women everywhere and an advocate for abused women then she needs to stop creating such garbage to represent herself.  I used to respect Rihanna and my daughters were allowed to listen to her music after I decided which ones they were privy to listen to, but not anymore the whole album disappointed me and changed my mind about letting her mentor any women in my household.