Chris Brown and Rihanna’s Relationship Ups and Downs: From Assault to Reconciliation to Final Split

Chris Brown and Rihanna faced some serious ups and downs in their relationship before they called it quits.

The fellow pop stars originally met as teenagers in 2004, but it wasn’t until four years later that Brown and Rihanna sparked romance rumors. Brown was charged in 2009 for physically assaulting Rihanna. He pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault and was sentenced to five years of probation, as well as community service and domestic violence counseling.

Brown and Rihanna controversially rekindled their romance in 2012 before splitting again for good one year later.

“It’s in the past, and I don’t want to say, ‘Get over it,’ because it’s a very serious thing that is still relevant; it’s still real,” Rihanna told Vanity Fair in October 2015. “A lot of women, a lot of young girls, are still going through it. A lot of young boys too. It’s not a subject to sweep under the rug, so I can’t just dismiss it like it wasn’t anything, or I don’t take it seriously. But, for me, and anyone who’s been a victim of domestic abuse, nobody wants to even remember it.”

During his 2017 documentary, Chris Brown: Welcome To My Life, Brown recalled how infidelity played a role in the explosive fight that led to his arrest.

“My trust totally was lost with her,” he recalled at the time. “She hated me after that. I tried everything, she didn’t care. She just didn’t trust me after that. From there, it just went downhill because there were too many verbal fights, physical fights as well. Mutual sides.”

Rihanna was subsequently linked to Drake and Saudi billionaire businessman Hassan Jameel before finding love with A$AP Rocky. The couple started a family with two sons born in May 2022 and August 2023. Brown, for his part, welcomed daughter Royalty with Nia Guzman in 2014 and son Aeko with ex-girlfriend Ammika Harris in 2019. Brown and Diamond Brown welcomed their first child together in 2022 with the birth of daughter Lovely.