RIHANNA SAYS "BIRTHDAY CAKE" WITH CHRIS BROWN WAS INNOCENT!

Rihanna's collaboration with Chris Brown was motivated by the pair’s desire to make beautiful music together - literally, not figuratively.

While critics and fans have been speculating that the former lovers are close to getting back together, the 24-year-old R&B singer said she reached out to Brown because he's "the only person that, really, it made sense to do the record," she said on Ryan Seacrest's radio show Thursday.

"We did two records — one for my fans, one for his fans — and that way our fans can come together," Rihanna told Seacrest. "There shouldn't be a divide, you know? It's music and it's innocent.

"Just as a musician, despite everything else, that was going to be the person," she added.

That everything else, though, includes Brown's viscious assault on his then-girlfriend on the eve of their appearances at the 2009 Grammy Awards.

The 22-year-old "Forever" singer is in the midst of a five-year probation sentence for the attack, which occurred inside a rented Lamborghini in the Hollywood Hills after the couple left a pre-party. Photos showed Rihanna, who was treated at a Los Angeles hospital, with a split lip and bruises all over her face.

The pair, however, shocked the music industry when they released a pair of collaborations, remixes of her song, "Birthday Cake," and his hit, "Turn Up the Music," released late last month.

Rihanna also didn't help quiet speculation after she recently launched a Twitter feud with Brown's current girlfriend, model Karrueche Tran.

"You know, I thought about rappers, and I've done that so many times, and the hottest R&B artist out right now is Chris Brown," Rihanna said during the radio interview. "So I wanted him on the track and then in turn he was like, 'Why don't you do the remix to my track?' and it was a trade-off."

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