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Rihanna Named Woman Of The Year By Glamour Mag, Opens Up About Her Ordeal

Glamour Magazinehas chosen pop star Rihanna as one of their 2009 Women of the Year — more than eight months after the singer’s highly publicized domestic fallout with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown.

Rihanna’s brutal beating at the hands of boyfriend Chris Brown left her humiliated, lonely and feeling like Britney Spears, the singer says.

“I felt like I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears,” the singer told Glamour magazine in her first print interview since the February attack.

“That was the level of media chaos that happened the next day. It was like, What, there are helicopters circling my house? There are 100 people in my cul-de-sac? What do you mean, I can’t go back home?”

“My friends and family have been extremely supportive, and everyone has been there for me,” the Rated R star tells the mag, o. “But at some point you are there alone. It’s a lonely place to be—no one can understand.”

In the wake of the February assault, Rihanna said one of the toughest things to cope with was the leak of the shocking photo of her beaten and bruised being leaked to the public — the singer calls the leak of the pic “humiliating.”

“It was humiliating; that is not a photo you would show to anybody,” she tells Glamour. “I felt completely taken advantage of. I felt like people were making it into a fun topic on the Internet, and it’s my life. I was disappointed, especially when I found out the photo was [supposedly leaked by] two women.”

What Rihanna Has Learned After Her Brush With Domestic Violence? “I’m stronger, wiser and more aware. You don’t realize how much your decisions affect people you don’t even know, like fans,” Rihanna says. “My story was broadcast all over the world for people to see, and they have followed every step of my recovery. The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn’t heard. Now I can help speak for those women.”

Rihanna On Finding Love: “I hope I find love in the next 10 years – that will be pretty annoying if I am 31 and still have never been in love! But yeah, I’d like to be in a great place in both my personal life and my career. I still want to be doing what I love. Whatever that is in 10 years, I don’t know.”

Rihanna On Domestic Violence: “Domestic violence is a big secret. No kid goes around and lets people know their parents fight. Teenage girls can’t tell their parents that their boyfriend beat them up. You don’t dare let your neighbor know that you fight. It’s one of the things we [women] will hide, because it’s embarrassing,” Rihanna explains. “My story was broadcast all over the world for people to see, and they have followed every step of my recovery. The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn’t heard. Now I can help speak for those women.”

Rihanna is now releasing a new album, Rated R, Nov. 23 and says she put “everything I’ve wanted to say for the past eight months into my music.” She will give her first TV interview since the Chris Brown attack on ABC’s Good Morning America this Thursday.