Rihanna Opens Up—Is It Enough?

Rihanna talks publicly for the first time since Chris Brown assaulted her

By now we're sure many of you have watched, or heard about, the first part of Rihanna's interview with Diane Sawyer.

We've been giving Chris Brown a hard time for quite a while now (and still don't plan on letting him off the hook while he makes douchey moves), and even got a little pissy that Ri-Ri had stayed mum for so long.

But watching R talk about the assault back in February, we realized two important things:

1. We were wrong to want to rush Rihanna, because as you can tell when she talks about Chris, this is a very difficult thing for her to do. But...

2. Thank friggin' heaven she finally did open up. Ri-Ri truly is an inspiration to women everywhere who face domestic abuse.

"When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result into some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part," Rihanna explains on Good Morning America.

"Even if Chris never hit me again, who's to say that their boyfriend won't? Who's to say that they won't kill these girls? These are young girls. I just didn't realize how much of an impact I had on these girls' lives until that happened."

Brava, girlfriend. Even though Rihanna admittedly went back to Brown after he beat her, we're glad she was able to get out of such a messy and unhealthy situation—eventually. That's the important thing here.

Whether Ri-Ri likes it or not, she is put on a pedestal. It's an unfortunate side effect when you reach superstar fame. We're just glad she's opening up and acting like the role model that so many vulnerable women out there need right now.