For Chris Brown, winning Rihanna back was certainly no ordinary feat and that’s, of course, with good reason. His 2009 assault on her both destroyed their first relationship and locked them in as pop culture’s new-age version of Ike and Tina Turner or Bobby and Whitney. And though it seems as though the world has yet to forgive Brown for his attack on Rihanna, he claims she has indeed forgiven him for what he calls his “greatest mistake.”

At Elton John’s recent AIDS Foundation Bash, Brown confirmed what many of us have already known, that he and Rihanna are indeed back together.

“We are back together. She is the most beautiful girl in the world. But I’m sad she couldn’t be here tonight; she is rehearsing for her tour,” he said.

And in a candid new interview with Britain’s The Mirror, Brown spoke about his rekindled romance for the first time and explains that it took many months of “serious making up” to get Rihanna to forgive him and take him back.

“Sometimes you row, you fight, with the one you love and things get said, stuff spirals,” said Brown. “That night was the deepest regret of my life, the biggest mistake. But she loves me — what can I say? I’m forgiven … but, yes, I worked hard for it.”

But Rihanna wasn’t the only one that brown had to win over again. In the years since his violent attack, the singer has been criticized and shunned by the world of showbiz and his red-hot career nearly went dead cold because of it. But despite the near constant bashing, Brown says that he’s not concerned with how people see him anymore.

“People attack me and criticize me, it happens all the time. But they don’t know me, and they don’t know us. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Other people can judge us but they don’t know anything,” said Brown.

And Rihanna doesn’t seem to have any concerns either, as she recently told Rolling Stone, “It’s different now. We don’t have those types of arguments any more. He’s not the monster everyone thinks. He’s a good person.”

In any case, it’s clear these two have no regrets or apologies about getting back together. Check out some other exes who couldn’t stay away from each other below. –nicholas robinson