The video for “We Found Love” finds Rihanna and a dude running through the arc of a tumultuous relationship. We see Riri and her man in the good days, making out on fast-food counters and dancing with hippies at a muddy rave. We see them in the dark days, popping pills and smoking … um, a comical number of cigarettes (guess Rihanna’s handlers aren’t quite cool with her pretending to do explicitly illegal drugs). And we seem them at the end, staring forlornly. It’s kind of like an episode of the U.K. Skins with the fast-forward sex scene from A Clockwork Orange tossed in. The only thing is, the dude sort of looks like Chris Brown, and definitely has Chris Brown’s dyed hair. And the two have an intense argument while in a car, the scene of Brown’s assault. Well then!

Why did Rihanna feel like now was the best time to make her most direct allusion to the incident? She’s been gradually sharing more, one glossy magazine cover at a time, about her relationship with Brown. Her latest statement that everyone freaked out about came to Esquire earlier this month: “It was too much anger [staying mad at Brown]. I’m really excited to see the breakthrough he’s had in his career.”

She’s also already made some videos about abusive relationships, first with her appearance on Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” and then her own “Man Down.” Those weren’t quite the same thing, though. She was guest-starring on “Love the Way You Lie,” and the grimy couple in the video (played by Megan Fox and the bassist from Drive Shaft) more closely resembled Em and his on-and-off wife Kim Mathers. In “Man Down,” she shoots a guy. (That, you know, did not happen in real life). Both times, she could plausibly deny she was addressing the Chris Brown situation. The dye job and the car argument (there’s no violence, but it’s fairly heated), though, can’t be accidental.

Anyway … enjoy?