Rihanna says that she felt protective of ex-boyfriend Chris Brown after he beat her up more than three years ago. The singer has told Oprah Winfrey that she was worried that everyone would think of him as a monster. Brown attacked Rihanna before the Grammy music awards in LA in 2009. "It was embarrassing, it was humiliating. I lost my best friend. Everything I knew switched and I couldn't control that," Rihanna said. "It was a weird, confusing space to be in. "As angry as I was, as angry and hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help. And who's going to help him? "Nobody's going to say he needs help. Everybody's going to say he's a monster, without looking at the source. "And I was more concerned about him." R&B singer Chris Brown, who was 19 at the time, pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to five years probation, community service and domestic violence counselling. Rihanna has not said much publicly until now about the assault. Chat show host Oprah Winfrey, who interviewed Rihanna at the singer's home in Barbados, said that she had started with a fixed idea of Rihanna based on her videos and lyrics, but had changed her view. "I thought she was going to be kind of a badass, kind of a hard-edged rocker, pop woman," she said. "Nothing could have been further from the truth." From: BBC