Chris Brown gave a candid and frank interview to Hot 97’s Ebro and Laura Stylez this week, during which the R&B star talked about his troubled past and numerous controversies. Breezy opened up about his drug abuse and the initial way he handled the backlash following his 2009 arrest for physically assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna.
“Honestly I kind of just listen to the wrong— ‘OK, we need to do this PR strategy, and do this,’ and I just wanted to be like, ‘F— y’all’ and that’s how I felt,” Brown admitted. “Because it’s my personal life and I’m going through a troubled time.”
Brown’s public image was irrevocably altered after that incident, but he was able to surprisingly bounce back. But the singer continued to find himself making headlines for bad behavior; ranging from more violent outbursts to drug abuse. Brown says that he was briefly addicted to substances such as Xanax and codeine.
“I’m not ashamed to talk about it,” Brown says. “A lot of our youth is doing it now, thinking it’s the cool thing to do. And I don’t knock anyone’s hustle, but I just feel for me, it wasn’t conducive to me. I was falling asleep on video sets, cussing people out, crazy stuff.”
Among the celebrities that Brown got into altercations with was his longtime rival, Young Money rapper Drake. The two were both romantically linked to Rihanna at various times, and the bad blood between them came to a head in the summer of 2012 at WiP and Greenhouse in New York City. The bottle-throwing melee that ensued led to a string of lawsuits and accusations, and Brown admits now that he was looking for a fight.
“At that time, I was all about running up on [Drake],” he confessed.
