Chris Brown was released from a Los Angeles Country prison at 12:01 a.m. Monday morning after serving 108 days of his 131-day sentence for probation violation.
Shortly thereafter, the R&B artist simply tweeted “Humbled and Blessed.” Followed by two more tweets: “Back to the Music and the Fans” and “Thank you God.”
The big question is what happens next? We”ve been her before with Brown. Following his beating Rihanna in 2009 and then again after he threw a chair while at “Good Morning America,” he”s already done the contrition interviews, the humble interviews, the “I”m going to try harder to be better” interviews quite a few times only to relapse into deplorable behavior again.
He”s had second and third chances. Let”s see what he does with his latest chance, since, remarkably, his fans seem to have an endless tolerance for his thuggery.
His five next steps should be:
*Show up at the 2014 BET Awards, for which you are nominated for three awards, and if you are presenting, stick to the script and be polite and low-key. If you are performing- and maybe this is a time for you and Ariana Grande to debut a live performance of your duet, “Don”t Be Gone Too Long,” do the performance and otherwise keep quiet.
*Keep a very low profile unless it”s work related. No tweeting or Instagramming from nightclubs or from basketball games or while out and about. We would have even advised against the little triptych sometime-girlfriend Karreuche Tran posted on Sunday that shows four pictures of you two juxtaposed against four photos of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. Yeah, about that… Humility, remember…
*Do not take the bait: You know that folks and paparazzi are going to snipe at you and that you”re actions are under intense scrutiny, whether that”s fair or not. Keep your head down and rise above all of it. Silence is your best option. Don”t react. Keep your mouth closed unless you're singing.
*Stay calm and collected during interviews for “X,” whenever the long-delayed album finally comes out (and it will now probably be sooner rather than later), talk to every outlet that will have you and realize that, yes, you are going to have to answer the same question about “how can we believe you”re really changed” over and over again. No throwing chairs, no complaining on Twitter, no nothing. Show you”ve changed by your actions.
*Above all, show us that you actually are humbled this time by doing your remaining community service without complaint, don”t ever act like you”re the martyr (remember this) and take responsibility for your past and move on.