‘NOT A MONSTER’

Chris Brown Calls Rihanna Assault His ‘Deepest Regret’

By Jacob Wittich

POP’S BIGGEST PARIAH CHRIS BROWN ADMITS THAT hitting Rihanna is the “deepest regret” of his life.

“That night was the deepest regret of my life, the biggest mistake,” Brown told the Daily Mirror during Elton John’s Aids Foundation Oscars party Sunday. “But she loves me –- what can I say? I’m forgiven …but yes, I worked hard for it.”

It’s been a long road since the R&B singer’s 2009 assault of Rihanna full of drama, but Brown says he has grown up and learned how to better handle the negatives that come with his celebrity status.

“I’ve learned a lot since that night and I’ve grown up. I was very young and I took a lot of stuff — fame — for granted,” Brown admits. “I didn’t understand it. The support from those who do know me and the fans, who are incredible, got me through.”

In growing up, Brown says he has learned to blow off the public backlash after he reunited with Rihanna, the most recent example coming during the Oscars Seth MacFarlane joked that Django Unchained‘s “unspeakable violence” was like a “date night for Rihanna and Chris Brown.”

“People attack me and criticize me, it happens all the time,” he said. “But they don’t know me, and they don’t know us. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Other people can judge us but they don’t know anything.”

For her part, bad girl RiRi opened up earlier in the week, saying, “It’s different now, We don’t have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about [stuff]. We value each other.”

Rihanna told Rolling Stone in January: “He’s not the monster everyone thinks. He’s a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He’s giving and loving.”

And if he isn’t, he’ll have to answer to her millions of fans.

Jacob Wittich is pop music fanatic majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago.