Chris Brown claims to have no memory of the night he beat then-girlfriend Rihanna. On Wednesday’s “Larry King Live,” Chris — who appears sandwiched between his mother Joyce Hawkins and his attorney Mark Geragos — is asked by Larry King if he recalls punching, biting and choking Rihanna. “No, I don’t. It’s crazy to me, like … wow,” Chris replies.
In fact, astonishment is Chris’ response to the entire incident. “I just look at it like, wow, I’m in shock,” he says of reading through the police accounts of what happened. “First of all, that’s not who I am as a person and that’s not who I pride myself on being. So when I hear about the police reports, I don’t know what to think.”
The same goes for Joyce Hawkins, who can’t figure out where her son’s behavior came from given the fact that Chris witnessed abuse firsthand growing up.
“Chris has never, ever been a violent person, ever,” Hawkins told King.
But psychologists actually posit that people who grow up in abusive households are more likely to become abusers themselves. Therefore, Chris’ previous statements about his childhood — “Nobody taught us how to love one another. Nobody taught us a book on how to … how to control our emotions or our anger” — go a ways towards explain where his behavior stemmed from.
As for the future, Chris has no qualms about the six months of community service that lie ahead: “They want me to pick up trash, remove graffiti. … I’m a hard worker. It’s something I’m willing to do.”
But the one thing that still hurts is seeing Rihanna out with other men. “At the end of the day, I mean, we’re not together, so, if she’s happy, I’m cool.”
Despite claiming that he’s still in love with Rihanna, Chris plans to abide by the judge’s order of protection that bans him from going near her for the next five years. However, that doesn’t apply to Chris’ mother, who has been in touch with the singer.
“[I] let her know that I was very, very baffled, what had happened, and apologized for my son, along with [saying], ‘I’m so sorry what happened to you.’ And I didn’t know what — I didn’t know what else to say, and I gave her a hug, and she hugged me as well,” Brown’s mother said.
In the end, Chris realizes he was at fault. That’s why he entered a guilty plea and accepted his punishment — that some feel did not fit the crime. “I made a mistake,” he said. “And it was just something I have to live up and own.”
