Rihanna's Compassion: Chris Brown 'Needed Help' After Beating

"Love thy neighbor" doesn't always come easily on the best of days, but "Love thy ex who mauled you like a starved lion while operating a moving vehicle?"

That takes a strong soul.

It's just the saddest thing to admit, but between exes Chris Brown and Drake now being sued over a barroom brawl that started over trash-talk about each's relationship with her, to the fuss over Brown's two performances at the 2012 Grammy Awards, Rihanna is never going to be completely past discussing Brown's beating of her the night before the 2009 Grammys.

Though that door will probably never completely close, lock and hold fast, Rihanna's soon-to-air Oprah Winfrey interview in the singer's native Barbados for Winfrey's intimate "Oprah's Next Chapter" touched on emotions evoked by that night that haven't been so extensively tread upon: sadness and even compassion for Brown.

"It was embarrassing, it was humiliating," she told Winfrey. "I lost my best friend. Everything I knew switched, switched in a night, and I couldn't control that."

Then came something not every abuse victim will come out and say of an abuser - or, depending on the perspective, that belies a kind of excusing of the abuser that's heard too often.

"As angry as I was, as angry and hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help . . . and who's going to help him?"

The clip is wrenching at times, but makes the chat all the more intriguing and easy to anticipate. The interview airs Sun. Aug. 19 at 9 p.m. EST on OWN.