Rihanna Rolling Stone Cover: Singer Confirms Relationship with Chris Brown [PHOTO]

Speculation of their reconciliation has been simmering for the good part of a year, but she and her controversial paramour have remained particularly mum until now.

The singer graces the February cover of Rolling Stone magazine that hits stands Jan. 31, and in her interview with contributing Editor Josh Eels she reveals a lot of what she has previously been saying is “nobody’s business.”

"I decided it was more important for me to be happy, and I wasn't going to let anybody's opinion get in the way of that,” she told Eels.

“Even if it's a mistake, it's my mistake. After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I'd rather just live my truth and take the backlash. I can handle it."

Rihanna admits that while the two are now in a good place, she was angry with Brown for a long time.

"I wanted him to know what it felt like to lose me. To feel the consequences of that,” she said.

“So when that (stuff) came back it hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, God, you've got to be kidding right now. But I got real with myself, and I just couldn't bury the way I felt."

Rumors of their relationship arose as early as February 2012, when the two collaborated on the remix of Rihanna’s “Birthday Cake,” despite Brown being in a relationship with model Karrueche Tran at the time.

Rihanna danced around the rumors for many months, supposedly engaging in a number of arguments with Tran through social media, which came to a head when Tran and Brown ended their relationship in October.

Soon after, she and Brown began teasing their relationship via their respective social media networks. They revealed to the public that they had spent several of the 2012 holidays together, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, but continued to neither confirm or deny their reconciliation.

The singer details to Eels that she would not be with Brown if she didn’t think he was ready and that outsiders should not view her love for him as weakness.

“It makes me feel great to know that people care. I guess it's just something that will show with time. There's nothing I could say that would convince you right now. But we're in a great place. And I can't ever see us going back," she said.

Rihanna insists that she is fully prepared to leave the relationship if it were ever to turn south again.

“Listen, I'll tell you right now: I don't have to take it. If he gives me that again, here's what I give him: nothing. I just walk away. He doesn't have that luxury of (expletive) up again. That's just not an option,” she said.  

“I can't say that nothing else will go wrong. But I'm pretty solid in knowing that he's disgusted by that. And I wouldn't have gone this far if I ever thought that was a possibility.”