90.9 WBUR - Boston's NPR news station
Top Stories:
PLEDGE NOW
Rihanna And Chris Brown
Chris Brown performs during the 54th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012 in Los Angeles. (AP)

Chris Brown performs during the 54th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012 in Los Angeles. (AP)

Rihanna and Chris Brown are making headlines again. Back in 2009, Brown beat his then girlfriend to a pulp before a pre-Grammy party.

He pleaded guilty to a felony charge and was ordered to stay away. She became the bloody and bruised face of relationship violence.

This year, Brown performed at the Grammy’s. Not everyone approved, including country singer Miranda Lambert, who got into a nasty tweet exchange with Brown.

Now comes news that Rihanna and Brown are collaborating musically again. Are they just singing duets, or back together?

Back in 2009, On Point examined the complexities of violent relationships

 
  • Sam

    I wasn’t surprised.

    I don’t know the percentage, but A LOT of women go back to their abusers. They cannot break the cycle of abuse. It is physically and emotionally uncomfortable (to say the least) to not be in that relationship and the perpetrators try their hardest to get their gf/wife back. It’s called a honeymoon period. They appologize, shmooze you, promise you things, including change and then you believe them, get back together, and it just goes around in the circle.

    I will not be surprised to hear if he abuses her again.
    And it’s sad, but there is nothing you can do.
    Not a single thing.

    A person (usually a woman) has to want to stop this, he/she has to realize that this is not healthy and not right and seek help to try to change. She will need to do a lot of work to heal herself and learn why she goes back to that person and how not to do that again.

    Best of luck to Rihanna. She is so beautiful and talented and it breaks my heart seeing her back again with Brown, if that’s the case.

    Having been in several abusive relationships, I am now learning so many things about myself and why I am attrackted and attract these kinds of people. Now, I wouldn’t touch my ex with a 10 foot pole, yet I can say with 100% certainty, that I still love him. It’s weird, but it’s true.

    Thank you

    • Bobs7447

      Interesting self-disclosure and a poignant reminder of how complicated this issue often is. I wish you the best.

  • More interested in News

    this is news?

  • JustSayin

    Fortunately, I don’t know who these people are, and I don’t see why anybody should know.

  • Annc1958

    She is foolish. Once a man hits a woman, he will definately do it again. Maybe she wants to be his punching bag?

  • Lauren

    It’s really not that hard to understand.

    When someone who you really believed loved you does something so horrible, it’s like a nightmare. You WANT to believe that it was a moment of temporary insanity–that it was not the “real” them. And the rest of the world seems to have moved on, so why shouldn’t she just forgive and forget too?

    Unfortunately, there is nothing normal about what he did. Anyone capable of that degree of violence is not a good person or safe to be around. I’m not saying he is irredeemable, but there has been no sign of true repentance and treatment. He will do it again, and I truly hope she survives the next time, as any expert will tell you that domestic violence tends to escalate. It surely never gets better or just goes away on its own.

ONPOINT
TODAY
May 21, 2013
Detail from the book jacket of "The Unwinding: An Inner History Of The New America" by George Packer. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

New Yorker writer George Packer’s inside history of the great unwinding of America’s 20th century way of life and where we stand now.

May 21, 2013
Henry Ford sits at the tiller of his first automobile, the Quadricycle, in front of the John Wanamaker salesroom on Broadway between 49th and 50th Streets in New York City in 1904. (AP)

The controversial and brilliant Henry Ford and the world he invented.

RECENT
SHOWS
May 20, 2013
Senate subcommittee on Personnel Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., right, greets members of the third panel before the subcommittee's hearing on sexual assault in the military. (AP)

Solving the U.S. military’s sex abuse problem. We look at the chain of command issue and what needs to change

 
May 20, 2013
In this Friday, July 20, 2012 photo, workers are pictured on a drilling rig near Calumet, Okla. Oklahoma is one of several states, including North and South Dakota, that has enjoyed a boom in the energy sector driven in large part by new and improved drilling techniques such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which cracks open fissures in rock formations to retrieve oil and gas. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

North America as the new fossil fuel powerhouse. We’ll look at the blessing, the curse and how it may reshape geopolitics and energy politics.

On Point Blog
On Point Blog
Switching Shows For Our Second Hour Today
Friday, May 17, 2013

Adventures in live radio. Richard Snow, our guest for our show on Henry Ford, was held up — possibly by a faulty Model T? — so we’re running a terrific archive show on great quotations.

More »
4 Comments
 
Floyd Abrams On Obama Vs. Nixon
Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Floyd Abrams — one of the country’s leading authorities on the First Amendment — joined us today to talk about revelations that the Justice Department seized two months of phone records from the Associated Press.

More »
Comment
 
Dr. Judy Garber On Angelina Jolie’s Cancer Decision
Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Dr. Judy Garber — director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — joined us for the final segment of our show today to talk about star Angelina Jolie’s decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy.

More »
Comment