Chris Brown Ditches Girlfriend Over His *Ahem* 'Friendship' With Rihanna

After stirring buzz this week with his stepped-up canoodling with ex-girlfriend/speedbag Rihanna, Chris Brown made it known Thursday that he's dumped Karrueche Tran, the girlfriend he's been seeing over a year.

That would be the same one who was reportedly reduced to tears when Rihanna told Oprah Winfrey over the summer how close she and Brown still are and how much she still loves him.

"[I've] decided to be single to focus on my career," Yahoo! OMG reports Brown explained. "I love Karrueche very much, but I don't want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna. I'd rather be single allowing us to both be happy in our lives."

It's not like his career couldn't use it, to be honest. His probation following his 2009 battery of Rihanna is undergoing an audit by the Los Angeles County courts, and his recently released album Fortune has only sold a whopping 45,000 copies in its second week on shelves.

Oh, and in England, somebody cleverly slapped copies in one retailer with a "This Man Beats Women" warning label.

In the meantime, though, it's uncomfortably conspicuous timing, considering that a photo leaked Wednesday night of the Grammy and MTV Video Music Award nominee with his arm around Rihanna's chair at a Jay-Z concert that night in Brooklyn. The two reportedly also met up with Jay-Z's wife, Beyonce, backstage and Brown was sighted later Tuesday night leaving the Gansevoort Hotel, where Rihanna had been staying.

As for Tran, she tweeted a photo Wednesday night, in the wake of the Brown-Rihanna snap, of white roses, a teddy bear and Godiva chocolates that had been delivered to her own New York City hotel room. She deleted the picture and tweeted "Bye baby" before reportedly leaving Manhattan, after followers called her a "laughing stock."