Stop Blaming Rihanna for Being Honest

Rihanna is being blamed again for not being a good role model. This time it’s for admitting to Oprah that she’s still in love with Chris Brown and feels protective of him even after being badly beaten by him three years ago.

Her complex emotions about the relationship are hard to hear, but criticizing her for expressing them is dangerous. This is someone who experienced serious emotional trauma, and criticizing her for how she feels about that is a lot like criticizing an anorexic girl for saying she feels fat even though she’s dangerously underweight. You might not understand what she’s saying, but ignoring how she feels doesn’t help her or anyone else.

In her interview she’s shedding real light on the complexity of an abusive relationship. When she describes losing her best friend and everything that she knew all in one night, she is just being honest. People rarely have such complete control over their emotions that they can immediately stop loving someone who has betrayed them. Bad experiences don’t always obliterate good ones.

When we criticize Rihanna for admitting to have complicated emotions about the trauma she experienced we are implicitly discouraging other girls from getting help. Too many abused women are isolated from their friends and family, both by their abuser and, unfortunately, but the people who care about them but can’t understand why they don’t just walk away from what is clearly a bad relationship.

We want to do everything we can to prevent our daughters (and sons) from getting into an abusive relationship. (It’s worth noting that both Rihanna and Chris Brown grew up in houses where they regularly witnessed abuse). But abuse still happens, and when it does we want our children to know that they can come to us, and hopefully come early, before the abuse becomes physical. But we also want them to know that they can still come to us after.

As for Rihanna, we applaud her honesty. It’s important that we listen to what she has to say, even if we don’t agree with everything she says, or did.