Rihanna is speaking out for the first time since being assaulted by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown in a Grammy night attack last February. In a poignant interview with Glamour’s December issue, Rihanna, a Glamour 2009 Woman of the Year recipitent, talks about how she coped after the brawl with Brown that garnered international headlines.

“I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears,” the “Russian Roulette” singer recalls in the interview, on newsstands Nov. 10. “That was the level of media chaos that happened the next day. The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn’t heard.”

Rihanna will be honored — alongside literary legend Maya Angelou and comedian Amy Poehler — at the annual Glamour Women of the Year event in New York City on Monday, Nov. 9.

In an interview with Diana Sawyer due to be aired on ABC’s Good Morning America this Thursday and Friday, the Barbadian-born singer says Chris Brown was “definitely my first big love.”

“This happened to me … it can happen to anyone,” she told Sawyer according to a statement from ABC.

Chris and Rihanna were among the fastest rising R&B artists in the country before the assault, which led to Chris losing several commercial sponsorships and being slapped with five years of probation.