Rihanna: I Collaborated with Chris Brown Because He’s the Hottest R&B Star

Rihanna says that her recent collaboration with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown was motivated mainly by the fact that he’s one of the most popular singers in R&B. “I reached out to him about doing ‘Birthday Cake’ because that’s the only person that really made sense to do the record,” the singer told Ryan Seacrest on the air this morning. “I thought about rappers, and I’ve done that so many times, and the hottest R&B artist out right now is Chris Brown. So I wanted him on the track.

“Just as a musician, despite everything else, that was going to be the person,” Rihanna insisted, referring to the fact that Brown was convicted for brutally assaulting her just before the Grammy Awards in 2009.

Brown and Rihanna were estranged up until recently, with the two collaborating on remixes of her track “Birthday Cake” and his current hit, “Turn Up the Music,” and reportedly hanging out at her birthday party last month.