Rihanna Opens Up About Her Past Relationships

Spoiler alert: Rihanna isn't telling us anything that we couldn't have figured out ourselves. In fact, Rihanna isn't telling us very much at all. But even if her comments weren't very detailed, that's still more than she's said about her relationship with Chris Brown since they collaborated on the 2012 song "Nobody's Business." According to US Weekly, Rihanna described her dating history to this point as follows: "I fell in love with the Beast. Pretty much my dating record so far." Naturally, the most infamous of all of her exes happens to be Brown and, well, their relationship is its own kind of infamous.

Naturally, Rihanna herself didn't name any names, or give any indication of what that statement might be in reference to, but it's not like part of her wasn't aware that people would automatically jump to the obvious. Try as both Rihanna and Brown might, there seems to be absolutely no way the two of them can put that 2009 incident of domestic violence behind them. As recently as September 2014, CBS pulled a Rihanna song that was awkwardly set to happen before a Baltimore Ravens game. (You know, the team that caught flack for condoning Ray Rice's domestic violence.)

So, while it's unconfirmed and unlikely that Rihanna was specifically referring to Brown when she made the comment, the fact that it applies to Brown will not be lost on her fans. And that's not fair to Rihanna. While the status of Brown's reputation is incredibly low on my things of things to care about, Rihanna shouldn't have to watch everything that she says about love and dating for fear that it might automatically harken back to an incident that took place six years ago and that she has worked very hard to move past.

Sure, she was angry at CBS for pulling her song — something I disagreed with her on — but this was a simple, overall view of her dating life, something that will automatically be taken by others to mean, "Man, that Chris Brown," as if she's never dated anyone else. At the same time, this statement could be an instance of blunt, self-awareness from Rihanna. After all, she laughed even as she was saying it, so she might be fully aware of what people would be thinking and have decided, in advance, not to even bother to care about it. Much like Miley Cyrus, Rihanna is an artist that is defined by her refusal to give a crap what other people decide to think of her, and that's her best and worst quality.

Ultimately, we'll probably never know exactly how seriously to take Rihanna's words as she's not in the habit of holding people's hands and walking them through her own nuances. All I ask is that people exercise some caution before they automatically believe that Bad Girl Rih-Rih is throwing shade Brown's way. For someone as mature and independent as she is, throwing out something like this about Brown when he is mired in romantic and personal drama of his own right now just seems out of character.

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