Rihanna: I Tried To Be Brown's Guardian Angel

Rihanna has explained why she took boyfriend Chris Brown back after he left her bloodied in an assault in 2009.

The singer admitted that she thought she was strong enough to be with him and "was very protective of him" even after his attack before the Grammy awards in Los Angeles.

The 27-year-old told Vanity Fair magazine she thought: "Maybe I'm one of those people built to handle ... this.

"Maybe I'm the person who's almost the guardian angel to this person, to be there when they're not strong enough" and to be able to "say the right thing".

However, she said she soon realised that she was wrong and "finally had to say, 'Uh-oh, I was stupid thinking I was built for this'. Sometimes you just have to walk away."

The singer, who is one of the best-selling artists of the decade said she doesn't "hate" Brown.

"I will care about him until the day I die. We're not friends, but it's not like we're enemies."

Brown's probation for the case formally ended in March this year, six years after the incident.

Rihanna also weighed in on fame and her status as a pop cultural icon in the interview, as well as some controversial topics such as Rachel Dolezal, the white NAACP executive who claimed to be black and resigned her post earlier this year.

"I think she was a bit of a hero," she said. "She kind of flipped on society a little bit. Is it such a horrible thing that she pretended to be black? Black is a great thing, and I think she legit changed people's perspective a bit and woke people up."

Rihanna also admitted that fame can sometimes be scary and that she dreams "about buying my own groceries".

And she laughed off her reputation for hard-partying ways:

"I've been thinking lately about how boring I am," she said. "When I do get time to myself, I watch TV."