Now that the dust has settled, Chris Brown feels as though the majority of the world — at the least the party that really matters — has forgiven him, and he is starting to feel welcomed again by his music industry peers and his fans.

In a new interview, the singer, who is currently serving a 5-year probation sentence and 6 months of community service for assaulting Rihanna back in 2009, is opening up about the journey he’s gone through over the past couple of years. He also briefly discusses the “handful” of people who stuck by him during the darkest time of his life.

“A handful of people stuck by me,” Brown told the NY Post’s Page Six gossip column, adding that fellow artists Pitbull and Pharrell Williams were among the most loyal.

Chris also explains how he was well aware of his industry peers who steered clear of him because they didn’t want to be associated with his then-tainted name.

“But when [most] people see certain things happen to somebody, they usually turn away. They don’t want to get involved with it because they don’t want their name attached to anything negative.”

But now … Chris says things have changed.

“They wanna get on the record. They wanna let me back in the door. The last two years, everybody dissed me. But my fans were so dedicated. The way I look at it is, you can’t walk around mad, because then you just prove everybody right that you’re an angry person.”

Brown’s fourth studio album F.A.M.E. hits stores on Tuesday, March 22nd.

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