Kevin Mazur/Getty ImageChris Brown and Rihanna aren't making new beautiful music together after all.
The producer who recently collaborated with the couple on a possible duet for Brown's upcoming album said Friday that the project is actually a tune they recorded before the singer was busted for allegedly assaulting Rihanna.
As E! News reported Monday, producer Polow da Don, who's working with Brown, spent time with both singers over the weekend at a Santa Monica studio adjacent to Interscope Records' Thom Thom Club, a private venue for artists to test out the sound of their new tunes for small audiences.
But according to a publicist for Polow, recent reports that the two were laying down a new track that they decided to do after Brown's arrest are inaccurate.
"The duet was recording long before the incident," the rep said. Rather, what went on with Rihanna in-studio over the weekend qualified as postproduction—mixing, audio tweaking, etc.
The clarification comes two days after the Los Angeles Times reported that the song, written by Da Don as a single for Rihanna, was reconceived as a duet for the two after Brown's Feb. 8 arrest. The lyrics dealt with love's "trials and tribulations, the way love is complicated and blind," a source told the paper.
People, meanwhile, reported Friday that the confusion stems from an R&B track Brown and Polow cowrote last year for which, in August or September, Brown and Rihanna recorded reference vocals for a demo version. But the song was never meant to be a finished duet and was ultimately handed off to other artists and, in fact, the Pussycat Dolls cut a version of the tune—called "Bad Girls"—for the Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack this year.
Polow released this statement Thursday: "My heart goes out to both Chris and Rihanna for what has happened in the past. They are both great artists to work with and I wish them well."
Brown is scheduled to be arraigned April 6 on felony charges of making a criminal threat and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury.
Rihanna, whose return to the Hollywood club scene was duly noted this week, was photographed this afternoon in New York.
Continuing his on-the-move existence over the last month, Brown has settled into recording at his third recording studio in the last two weeks and has been writing songs for his new album at the world-famous Record Plant in Hollywood.
"He's just putting ideas down for some songs he wrote," says a source close to Brown. "He needs to feel like he's moving forward."
The source describes the sessions as "all business."
Brown is moving forward, for now, without the help of Polow. Aside from the Record Plant and the Santa Monica sessions with Polow, Brown has also logged time in a Burbank studio. Before that, he was recording in Florida ahead of his reconciliation weekend with Rihanna.
—Additional reporting by Ken Baker and Ashley Fultz
(Originally published March 13, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. PT)