Rihanna/Chris: Why Spare Diddy?
The biggest pop-culture story of the day is the return of singer Rihanna to her boyfriend, singer Chris Brown (both are pictured), some three weeks after he allegedly assaulted her. This development has set the Internet afire. Some chat-room regulars argue that Brown deserves a second chance; others say that Rihanna now deserves anything, violent or otherwise, that comes to her; the majority are upset about the message that Rihanna’s return sends to young women everywhere, a high percentage of whom are abused by their boyfriends. The detail that captures my eye: according to E! News, the reunion is taking place at Sean “Diddy” Combs’s mansion in Miami Beach. Diddy loves to be the center of attention, so his acting as a broker is no surprise; I am, however, surprised that he’s not received more criticism for his actions as Chief Enabler. In a world where privacy is possible, perhaps we could say that Rihanna and Chris’s relationship was their own business, but in the real world, where celebrities get ever-bigger and privacy gets ever-smaller, Rihanna’s return seems extremely sad and, for some girls, potentially damaging.
