Daily Mirror

We continue to address women's issues of remark and the Grammy's. Petrova knows everything first. I have several keen memories of her relaying news to me: receiving a text in the midst of a hazy IHOP breakfast, "Lindsay Lohan arrested," or my interrupting bookmaking class to announce Anna Nicole's overdose, after receiving a text from same. Sunday night, Pet alerted me to the massive, ugly, urgent story of Chris Brown's assaulting Rihanna; the pop power couple were slated to perform together at the Awards ceremony, but at showtime, he was in jail and she in the hospital. Details have emerged slowly, but today, TMZ posted this vivid account.

When I first heard, I thought about a photograph of Rihanna that had circulated last week. She walked in Los Angeles with a friend (assistant? family?). She wore a boys oxford, tucked into a flouncy mini; it reminded me of something I wore in high school, sweet and summery. I was curious about her short hair. I was jealous of the West Coast weather. In general, I thought her to be the adorable girl-de-jour, the confident, sartorially influential hitmaker. Yet, several days after, I wasn't so surprised by the altercation. The equally adorable, momenty and talented Chris Brown had a violent childhood, a step-father who hit his mother. Supposedly, the scene of the crime was a rented Lamborghini, a symbol of speed and new money and ego, an essentially angry and entitled (and insecure) car. Maybe I always jump to this conclusion, but I figured drugs were involved. They're so young (he, 19, she, 20), and so suddenly rich and famous, the tenor of their lives utterly strange and out-of-control. Axl hit Stephanie Seymour. Ike hit Tina. Jerry Lee Lewis married his 14-year-old cousin (pretty abusive and off-kilter). Sam Cooke didn't have a very good record. Nor did crazed, gun-lover, Elvis.

Mostly I'm pleased that Chris Brown's career and public image, having lost multiple endorsements and been banned from KissFM, could be so tarnished by this terrible abuse. I mean, it's a big deal; supposedly, as the fight escalated, he told Rihanna that he was going to kill her and strangled her until she passed out. Brown fled the scene; when the cops arrived (she had previously made a 911 call), Rihanna was still unconscious, which leads one to believe, Brown might have thought, in the moment, that he had killed her. But also, part of me is dismayed that he will be demonized, called an exception, exiled, and, all the while, folks (myself included) will continue to valorize and closely watch other celebrities. Our attentions to the famous are so total, that personal life determines how and whether an album can get made and sold. Not all information is worth having, and the aspirational collective imagination about people like Brown and Rihanna is a farce. They are imperfect people. Kids, really.