Riri went through Breezy's phone as he was on the freeway driving them to an Award show (Grammy's I believe, they didn't make it for obvious reason so Justin Timberlake and Al Green ended up covering for them randomly enough) she confronted him about cheating on her started hitting him going hysterical (in that hurt woman way), but again he's driving a motor vehicle on the freeway if he loses control both Breezy and Riri may not be here today. So he does what he could manage and subdues her through giving her some beats from the driver's seat (think the way ma dukes would beat ya ass in the car as a jit but to the passenger seat instead of the back). While he probably hit harder than he should of, was likely in part driven by anger of being caught and her confronting him in that manner, at that moment all in all what he did was understandable and arguably justifiable. Granted he could of pulled over but I digress. This is in large part why Rihanna took him back after for a short spell, and to this day doesn't speak negatively about him (like she has Drake recently) because she knows she escalated that situation and has considerable fault. To his credit Chris took the high rode of taking his L in silence/apologizing. He took the L of both cheating and hitting her even though the latter has been mischaracterized, and given him a woman beater moniker, because he also knows he didn't have to go that far and he knows if he hadn't cheated it wouldn't of happened in the first place. But since he doesn't talk about the perception remains and with how much time has passed it will always remain, tbh what could of been for him sans that incident in terms of singing/acting trajectory could of possibly matched or eclipsed MJ, and at the very least surpassed Hov/Bey if he and Rihanna made it work. To be frank I think those regrets haunt him till today and explains much of his attitude to media/drug usage. Instead of wifing Riri with a low body count in prime form, he got a kid by a random thot chasing other random thots like Karreuche, TRAGIC
