Rihanna Still Loves Chris Brown: 'He Was the Love of My Life'

Rihanna bared her feelings about Chris Brown, three years after their infamous altercation that left her with a bloody face. "I still love him," she said on a recent "Oprah's Next Chapter" episode. "I think he was the love of my life. He was my first love and I see that he loved me the same way."

"We have maintained a very close friendship ever since the restraining order was dropped. ... We're very, very close friends. We built a trust again and that's it. We love each other and we probably always will, and that's not anything that we're going to try to change," she told Oprah Winfrey.

Riri admitted it was hard for her to see Chris again because she still had feelings for him. "It's awkward because I still love him...my stomach drops and I have to maintain this poker face and not let it get to the outer part of me. I have to maintain that and suppress it," she said.

Despite what happened between them, Riri still cared for him. "I truly love him - the main thing for me is he's at peace. I'm not at peace if he's not happy or he's still lonely. I care. It actually matters that he finds that peace," she explained and cried during the interview airing August 19.

Reconciling with her own father who had been abusive with her mother helped her forgive Chris. "I thought I hated Chris and I realized it was love that was tarnished. It looked like hate because it was ugly, it was angry, it was inflamed, it was tainted and I realized that what it was is," she said. "And the minute I let go of that, I started living again."

"It was embarrassing it was humiliating ...I lost my best friend," she talked about the aftermath of the altercation. "I felt like he made that mistake because he needed help. And who's going to help him? Nobody is going to say he needs help, everybody's going to say he's a monster without looking at the source."