Rihanna "embarrassed" she fell for man like Brown

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After being beaten by singer Chris Brown in February, pop star Rihanna felt embarrassed she fell in love with the type of man he was and left him to set an example for young women, she said in an interview on Thursday.

Rihanna's comments to ABC News mark her first TV interview in which she spoke about the beating, which occurred on the eve of the music industry's Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and resulted in Brown's guilty plea to an assault charge.

The Barbados-born Rihanna, whose hit songs include "Umbrella" and "Disturbia," said she felt ashamed when the public learned. A police photo of her bruised and bloodied face was leaked to the media, and a detailed description of the event was placed in court documents.

"I didn't want people to think that that's the kind of person -- that I fell in love with that person," Rihanna told TV journalist Diane Sawyer on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"That's embarrassing. That's embarrassing that that's the type of person that I fell in love with, so far in love, so unconditional that I went back," she said.

Rihanna and Brown, whose hit songs include "Run It" and "Kiss Kiss," reunited within weeks of the beating spending time together in Miami at the home of rap star Sean "Diddy" Combs. But Rihanna has since left Brown.

"It's completely normal to go back," Rihanna said.

"You start lying to yourself," she said. "The minute the physical wounds go away, you want this thing to go away, this is a memory you don't want to have ever again."