Rihanna on 20/20: 'When Is He Going to Stop?' (Video)

One thought raced through R&B singer Rihanna’s mind as her boyfriend Chris Brown punched and bit her in an enraged frenzy. “When is it going to stop? When is it going to stop?”  The singer recounted her harrowing experience in an interview with Diane Sawyer on the ABC show 20/20, which aired Friday (Oct. 6).

The assault left her battered and bruised and would later lead to Brown’s arrest and conviction on battery charges.

“He had no soul in his eyes. Just blank. He was clearly blacked-out. There was no person when I looked at him,” she said recalling the frenzied attack. “I was battered, I was bleeding, I was swollen in my face.”

The couple had just hopped into Brown’s rented luxury Lamborghini sports car and were leaving a pre-Grammy Awards party, when Brown received a text message from another woman.

“I caught him in a lie, and he wouldn’t tell the truth. And I wouldn’t drop it,” Rihanna told Diane Sawyer in the interview, portions of which aired Friday morning on “Good Morning America.”

“I couldn’t take that he kept lying to me, and he couldn’t take that I wouldn’t drop it. … It escalated into him being violent towards me. And it was ugly,” she said.

In retrospect, Rihanna believes they fell in love too soon. “The more in love we became, the more dangerous we became for each other, equally dangerous,” she said. “Because it was a bit of an obsession.”

The assault upended both their lives and in the eight months since then, they have both had to find a way to cope with the episode and rebuild their lives.

Rihanna believes the horrifying ordeal has made her stronger because it was so unexpected.

“I’ve definitely emerged stronger. Going through a rough experience like that makes you tougher and to get through it takes a lot of guts. I’m naturally a survivor, but it’s been hard. Just when you think somebody was perfect and that it can’t happen to you, it does,” she said.

Rihanna, 21, has spoken about the incident for the first time this month, and says she has finally opened up because she feels she has a duty to those who look at her as a role model.

“With any big life experience, it makes you more resilient. Many people go through something real like this. To sufferers, it’s almost as if you’re not allowed to talk about it,” she told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper.

“I like to think that from the beginning of my career, people have looked up to me. Hopefully this story is something else that people can take inspiration from. I want to send a message to young women who have been through this sort of violence that there is help out there,” she explained.

Brown has also appeared on a number of talk shows to talk about the attack. He blames his inability to control his temper for the attack, but says he still finds it hard to believe it happened.

“My thoughts are like, ‘Why did it happen?’ Like, ‘What was I thinking? What is wrong with you?’ That’s what I’m thinking with myself.”

Chris pleaded guilty to assault and in August was sentenced to six months of community service, 12 months of domestic violence counseling and five years probation.

The judge also issued a restraining order which requires him to stay at least 100 yards from Rihanna for five years.

The break up was difficult to accept at first, and Rihanna says she still has feelings for her ex-lover.

“Love doesn’t go away right away,” she says. “He didn’t accept that very well. Obviously he didn’t want us to be apart. But I had to make a decision for me.”

Both Rihanna and Brown have new albums coming out, as each tries to rebuild their careers.