Sep 2

I accept full responsibility,” said Chris Brown to Larry King. Um, gee: for what? “Out of respect for her” — that is, Rihanna — “and myself, I don’t really want to talk about what went on.”

Well, then, so glad you want to be on TV for an hour, Chris, since you don’t want to talk about the exact reason you were invited to appear on TV!

But Larry was relentless, in his saggy-noodle way.

“Do you love her?”

“Definitely.”

“In love with her?”

“Definitely.”

Holy cow, what a scoop Larry King Live offered us on Wednesday night! Chris Brown professed his affection for Rihanna, but claiming that “out of respect for her and myself,” he wasn’t going to tell King one damning detail about the events that resulted in a felony-assault conviction, with five years probation and six months “community labor.”

Flanked by his mother and his lawyer, Brown said, “I’m like, ‘Wow,’” numerous times when asked his reaction to the police reports and photographs of a beaten Rihanna. “That’s not who I am as a person. I dont know what to think,” he said. There was a lot more vague psychobabble like that. “I’m not a man fully yet,” said Brown.

Larry tried flattery: “You appear… rather nice,” he said. Larry brought up the reports that Brown’s mother, Joyce Hawkins, was a victim of domestic abuse, adding, absurdly, “By the way, Joyce, I’m not a counselor, but it’s not your fault.”

But it was to no avail: “I don’t really talk about what went on,” said Brown.

The closest Brown came to acknowledging his acts was also his closest brush with eloquence: ”Nobody taught us how to love one another.”

There was so little to discuss that King pretty much tossed in the towel in the last ten minutes, and started asking Brown how he felt about Michael Jackson’s death. “I was devastated. I broke down.” Duly noted.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Larry King Live if Larry didn’t go loopy at least once. Toward the end, he said to Brown, “The tragedy is, when you die a hundred years from today, this is going to be in the first paragraph.” Huh?

Thanks, Larry. But I think the tragedy is something else, in this case.

Did you watch? What did you think?