In the three years since Brown pleaded guilty to repeatedly punching then-girlfriend Rihanna in the face and threatening to kill her, the singer has consistently seemed more hostile than humbled, eager to call out haters and perceived adversaries (he’s said the title of his previous album, “F.A.M.E,” stands for “forgiving all my enemies”) while still possessed of a hair-trigger temper seemingly unchanged by the year he spent in court-ordered anger-management classes.
Yet Rihanna appears to have forgiven Brown, granting last year that the restraining order against him be dropped, collaborating with him on their duets and even, reportedly, spending time alone with him again — despite the furious protests of her management team.
But that doesn’t mean the rest of us need to cut him a break — or should.
On the contrary, Brown is just the latest example of how domestic violence perpetrated by male celebrities is routinely downplayed, rationalized and swept under the carpet, sending the message to impressionable audiences — like Brown’s largely teenybopper followers — that men who hit women are just exciting, misunderstood bad boys. (Exhibit A: the enduring popularity of wife-beating psychopath Charlie Sheen.)
Just examine some of Team Breezy’s reactions to Brown’s Grammy performance this year: “I’d let Chris Brown beat me up anytime,” “I don’t know why Rihanna complained,” and “Chris Brown. . . please beat me.”
Brown himself fanned the flames, casually labeling those who still associate him with that gut-wrenching photo of Rihanna’s bruised and bloodied face “haters.” His post-Grammys tweet? “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F – – K OFF!”
No, Chris Brown. The ultimate “F – – K OFF” came just months after your press-released apology to Rihanna, when you ordered a $300,000 custom-made diamond necklace emblazoned with the word “OOPS!” in a comic-book sunburst shape.
Not exactly the language of contrition.
Brown is quite obviously still in the early stages of getting the anger issues under control. After an interview last spring with Robin Roberts of “Good Morning America,” in which she (understandably) brought up Rihanna and the restraining order, Brown trashed his dressing room, threw a chair at a window and broke it, and bolted from the building shirtless.
But it’s easy to see why Brown would buy into the idea that he doesn’t need to be apologetic or willing to discuss what he did. After all, he has an army of female fans pleading to be his new punching bags, and a complicit music industry that seems eager to put the whole pesky domestic violence issue to rest.
Before Brown performed at the Grammys, the awards show’s producer, Ken Ehrlich, went on record as saying the singer had done his penance. “We’re glad to have him back,” Erlich told ABC News Radio. “I think people deserve a second chance, you know?”
Yes. People who are genuinely, demonstrably sorry for what they did, who’ve made a conscious effort to change their behavior, deserve a second chance. The huffy, defensive, and downright volatile Brown falls seriously short of the mark. And when we continue to buy his albums, see his movies or even give him admiring air time on Twitter, what we’re telling him is that making amends, not to mention working on becoming a decent human being, would be a total waste of his time.
Now, to make the situation even more egregious, he’s taken a role in a movie based on a book that tells women how to behave in order to keep men happy. In the trailer, Brown is seen sneaking out of a woman’s bedroom in the morning while she obliviously talks to him from the other room. Classy!
But if recent reports are true, Brown is taking it to a whole new level of shamelessness, with the full support of his entourage. In February, outside a nightclub in Miami, Brown allegedly grabbed an iPhone from a female fan who’d taken photos of him, yelling “Bitch, you ain’t gonna put this on no Web site,” and sped off with her phone. And US Weekly wrote that he recently tried to pick up a woman by saying, “Can I get your number? I promise not to beat you,” with one of his friends laughingly confirming, “That’s his new line!”
Memo to Brown and his handlers: This is not how to “think like a man.” This is how to think like a sociopath.
Sara Stewart is a features writer at The Post. Her e-mail is sstewart@nypost.com.
