Rihanna tearfully admits she still loves ex-boyfriend Chris Brown 'her first love' three years after assault

Tearful Rihanna at the interview with Oprah

• Chris Brown was her first love
• She thinks Chris Brown is the love of  her life
• She still loves him
• They're working on their relationship and still see each other
• She's single while Chris Brown is in a long-term relationship with model Karrueche Tran

Rihanna in an interview with Oprah Winfrey admitted despite its violent end she still loves ex-boyfriend Chris Brown.

The 24-year-old singer told the talk show host the pair are still 'very close friends', adding, 'We built a trust again and that's it. We love each other and we probably always will.'

After re-counting the events, a tearful Rihanna, real name Robyn Fenty, opened up about where the pair's relationship now stands.

'We've been working on our friendship again and now we're very close friends,' she said. 'And that's not anything we're going to try to change.'

'It was embarrassing it was humiliating... I lost my best friend,' she said.

But the singer admits since the restraining order was dropped against Brown in February 2011, the pair have been working on their friendship, having seen each other as recently as last month in St Tropez.

After she was beaten by Chris Brown ahead of the Grammy Awards in 2009

But she said it's still difficult to see her ex, because her feelings are conflicting.

'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 it and suppress it,' she explained, adding, 'When you don't understand those feelings you can make a lot of mistakes.'

Rihanna said the pair are not pursuing anything romantic, noting Brown is in a longterm relationship (with model Karrueche Tran), while she is single.

Still, the memories of their relationship, she predicted, will linger.

'I think he is the love of my life. He was my first love.'

But she remembers, in part, where it went wrong: 'We were very young and very spontaneous. We were falling in love and going at a really rapid pace. We forgot about ourselves as individuals,' Rihanna explained.

After falling into what she described as a 'dark place', reflected in her music, her fashion choices and her attitude, the singer said she was finally able to make peace with the violent end to their romance by rebuilding her relationship with her father, Ronald Fenty.

'I have to move on,' she said. 'I have forgiven him. It took me a long time. I was angry for a long time.'

But that reconciliation comes with the desire to know her ex has also healed since the fracas.

'I truly love him, so the main thing for me is that he's at peace... I care. It actually matters [to me] that he finds that peace,' she said.

Prepared for a backlash, she continued: 'I can't tell people how to feel about it. They're entitled to feel angry because it wasn't a good thing that happened. But I have forgiven him.'