Rihanna admits she still loves Chris Brown

In a candid interview with Oprah Winfrey last night Rihanna admitted despite their relationship violent end she still loves ex-boyfriend Chris Brown.

Rihanna, 24, told Oprah Winfrey she and Chris Brown are still “very close friends”, adding: “We built a trust again and that’s it. We love each other and we probably always will.”

The television special for Oprah: The Next Chapter showed Oprah Winfrey describe the fall-out from the horrific night after a pre-Grammy party in 2009.

After re-counting the events, a tearful Rihanna, real name Robyn Fenty, opened up about where the pair’s relationship now stands.

“It was embarrassing it was humiliating… I lost my best friend,” she said.

Rihanna admits since the restraining order was dropped against Chris Brown in February 2011, the pair have been working on their friendship, having seen each other as recently as last month in St. Tropez.

“We’ve been working on our friendship again and now we’re very close friends,” she said.

“And that’s not anything we’re going to try to change.”

But she said it’s still difficult to see her ex, because her feelings are conflicting.

“It’s awkward because I still love him.

“My stomach drops and I have to maintain this poker face and not let it get to the outer part of me. I have to maintain it and suppress it,” she explained.

Then she added: “When you don’t understand those feelings you can make a lot of mistakes.”

Rihanna said they are not pursuing anything romantic, noting Chris Brown is in a longterm relationship (with model Karrueche Tran), while she is single.

Still, the memories of their relationship, she predicted, will linger.

“I think he is the love of my life. He was my first love.”

But she remembers, in part, where it went wrong: “We were very young and very spontaneous. We were falling in love and going at a really rapid pace. We forgot about ourselves as individuals.”

Rihanna’s words have caused uproar with domestic violence support charities blasting the singer for “normalizing” abuse.

Charities claim Rihanna is sending out a dangerous message, which could stop abused women from coming forward.

Vivienne Hayes, chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, told The Independent: “Rihanna’s case demonstrates the emotional complexities felt by women locked in abusive relationships.”

After falling into what she described as a “dark place”, reflected in her music, her fashion choices and her attitude, the singer said she was finally able to make peace with the violent end to their romance by rebuilding her relationship with her father, Ronald Fenty.

“I was so angry at him. I was just angry about a lot of things from my childhood. And I couldn’t separate him as a husband from him as my father,” she said, acknowledging he was violent toward her mother, Monica Braithwaite.

Rihanna’s parents split nearly two years before she left Barbados for the states at 16. The singer admitted her father’s “addiction” tore her family apart; although she did not elaborate on his substance abuse.

Now, after bridging the gap, she says she has moved on from the scandal with Chris Brown that has cast a shadow over her career for the last three years.

“I have to move on,” she said.

“I have forgiven him. It took me a long time. I was angry for a long time.”

But that reconciliation comes with the desire to know her ex has also healed since the fracas.

“I truly love him, so the main thing for me is that he’s at peace… I care. It actually matters [to me] that he finds that peace,” she said.

Prepared for a backlash, she continued: “I can’t tell people how to feel about it. They’re entitled to feel angry because it wasn’t a good thing that happened. But I have forgiven him.”