If the Chris Brown/ Rihanna mess was a film – and it’s only a matter of time – then this is the act-two climax.

Act one was about the incident itself. Act three will potentially be about Chris Brown getting bummed in jail. And right now is the part where Chris Brown frantically tries to find a decent line of defence for allegedly beating Rihanna up. For the record, Chris Brown’s apparently planning on pleading self-defence.

And that strikes us as just monstrously dumb. Honestly, Chris Brown would have been better off pleading insanity. It’d be watertight – have you seen that moustache?

Now that we’ve had all the shocking revelations about Chris Brown and Rihanna that we can take – just yesterday we learnt that Rihanna may have been pregnant at the time of the incident, that Chris Brown may have used a flamethrower on Rihanna and that, for a short time, both of them turned into giant Power Rangers-style megazords and rampaged through LA leaving ruined buildings and crying orphans in their wake – it’s time to move on.

Specifically, it’s time to move on to Chris Brown’s court appearance. Although he’s yet to be charged with anything, Chris Brown is scheduled to appear in court next Thursday. And that means getting some sort of strategy in order, because lawyers and juries are notoriously more difficult to impress with a grin and some dance moves stolen from the Smooth Criminal video than a gaggle of borderline-illiterate teenage pop fans.

So what will Chris Brown do? Plead not guilty? That’ll be difficult because he’s already issued an apology. Plead guilty? What, and ruin his career? There’s just one thing for it – Chris Brown will need to enter a plea of self-defence. Which is something he’s seriously thinking about, as Digital Spy reports:

An insider close to Brown’s legal team told Life & Style that the singer is already preparing his position if charges are filed against him following his arrest. The source said: “Chris is already building his case. He’s saying she threw a phone at him, then hit him in the head and basically just lost it. He’s saying she attacked him.”

Well that might stand up in court, because we’ve all seen those photos of Chris Brown’s bruised fac… oh, wait, no – those were pictures of Rihanna’s bruised face, weren’t they? Our mistake – maybe Rihanna’s face only got so messed up because she wouldn’t stop headbutting him or something.

Anyway, if Chris Brown does decide to go down the self-defence route he’ll need to tread incredibly carefully – he’ll need to prove that Rihanna was angry enough to physically threaten him, while also trying to convince the jury.

And that all depends on who makes up the jury. If it’s a well-picked, intelligent cross-section of the community, Chris Brown could have his work cut out for him. On the other hand, if the jury is exclusively made up of hecklerspray commenters the he’ll probably just need to explain that he punched Rihanna because she’s got a funny voice and he’ll be let free and presented with the keys to the city.

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