RIHANNA'S HEARTBREAKING DECISION

RIHANNA'S HEARTBREAKING DECISION

A week after his arrest following a violent fight with his girlfriend, Rihanna, Chris Brown broke his silence with a statement, saying, “Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired.” But while Chris was finally speaking out about what happened, at press time, the notoriously press-shy Rihanna still wasn’t. “She wants more time to think about everything,” says an insider close to Chris. “She loves Chris but also wants to send the right message to fans by what she says publicly and how she handles her relationship.”

Although Rihanna was spotted leaving LA’s London hotel with Chris the morning after the incident — which reportedly left her with two contusions on her forehead, a bloody lip and nose, and bite marks on one arm and several fingers — she returned alone to her native Barbados soon after. “At some point, she will speak out,” says her father, Ronald Fenty, who still lives in Barbados. “She’ll be all right.” As for the state of her relationship with Chris, Ronald adds, “If it were me, I’d move on.”

But will Rihanna, 21, be able to break things off with Chris, 19, whom she’s been dating for a little more than a year? While a family friend of Chris’ tells Life & Style the two are not currently talking, a Rihanna insider isn’t convinced the star will cut Chris out of her life for good. “People who know Rihanna know how much she loves him and how she believes very much in the fairy-tale ending,” the insider tells Life & Style. “Maybe that’s naive, but hardly anyone who works with her believes she’s just going to walk away from him.”