(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Chris Brown says only a handful of people continued to associate with him after he was convicted of assaulting Rihanna.

The American singer punched, kicked and bit his then-girlfriend in his rented car during an argument in 2009. He was sentenced to five years' probation and six months' community labour following the incident, and also had to take domestic violence classes and stay away from the Barbados-born singer.

Following the incident stores stopped stocking Chris records, and radio stations refused to play his music. He has spoken about how hard the situation was, revealing it cost him almost all of his friends.

A handful of people stuck by me, he told Page Six Magazine, which is out on Thursday.

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.

Among those who offered Chris support were rapper Pitbull and Pharrell Williams, of N*E*R*D.

Chris, 21, is now back with a new record called F.A.M.E. which he is proud of. The records first single Yeah 3x has already topped the charts in New Zealand and done well in Australia and America.

The name stands for Forgiving All My Enemies, and Chris feels he is finally being allowed to move on from his past mistakes.

[People] wanna get on the record. They wanna let me back in the door, he explained. 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.

The restraining order keeping Chris away from Rihanna was recently relaxed, and the beauty told her lawyers she was happy for the amendment to take place. (C) Cover Media