A history of violence: how has Chris Brown survived so much controversy?

A shocking new documentary lays out the many allegations of abuse against the star, from attacking Rihanna to a claim of sexual assault on Diddy’s yacht

On 30 December 2020, Jane Doe, a professional dancer who had just moved to Los Angeles, was invited by a friend to a New Year’s party on a yacht in Miami. The yacht was owned by the now-disgraced rap mogul Diddy; of course she should attend as someone trying to break into the music industry, she recalls thinking in the new ID documentary Chris Brown: A History of Violence. Once on the yacht, Jane Doe met Chris Brown, the R&B star once considered the next Michael Jackson, and still a successful touring artist. Jane Doe knew that Brown had once, famously, assaulted his girlfriend, Rihanna, on the eve of the 2009 Grammys (in fact, as the documentary reminds, Rihanna later said he assaulted her on several occasions), but that was a long time ago. She had been a kid then. Brown took an interest in her music and dance career, and offered her the first of two drinks.

According to Jane Doe, something immediately felt off. She describes feeling heavy, suddenly very tired and nearly immobilized. Through tears (and anonymizing techniques), she says Brown led her to the back of the yacht, raped her, then put his number in her phone, in order to connect about her career back in LA – a textbook way to stay close to and confuse the victim, as the domestic violence expert Dr Carolyn West points out in the film. The two stayed in contact for several months, until Jane Doe was able, through therapy, to come to terms with what had happened to her. “I know it for a fact. Instead of telling myself that it wasn’t. It was. It was rape,” she says in the film. She filed a lawsuit, she says, only because she was advised that it would help another woman who had a similar experience with Brown.