Terrence Howard has retracted comments he made about Chris Brown’s felony arrest on charges of assaulting his girlfriend last Sunday. The Oscar-nominated star insists he never would have been so “insensitive” if he knew the full story behind why the paparazzi was asking him about the teen crooner.

On Monday, Terrence, who thought the couple had only been involved in a verbal conflict, said: ”It’s just life, man. Chris is a great guy. He’ll be all right. And Rihanna knows he loves her. She’ll be all right. Just everybody’s got to get out of her way.”

The Iron Man star later found himself submerged with vicious hate e-mails. Terrence now says he was wrong to make the comments.

“When they asked me about Chris Brown, I was in no way aware of what he had been accused of. Had I known, I would have never had said something so insensitive.”