Singer Rihanna’s father has made a statement to the press regarding the release of her beaten and bruised photo. He said it’s good and it’s bad that it’s out there. She deserved privacy as a victim of domestic violence. But he pointed out that it won’t let some people continue to think that the extent of her injuries had been exaggerated.

Rihanna’s father tells Usmagazine.com the leaked photo, allegedly of his daughter after her Feb. 8 altercation with Chris Brown, is “terrible.”

“Yeah, I saw it,” Ronald Fenty told Us in a telephone interview Friday morning. “It’s disturbing.”

The photo shows a female, who appears to be Rihanna, with bruises and cuts on her forehead, lips and cheeks.

Fenty said people now will be able to “grasp the situation a lot better.

“It’s good and it’s bad to see the picture because there’s other people who were thinking differently, that [Rihanna’s injuries] may not be that bad, just a little spank or a little thing.”

Los Angeles Police have launched an internal investigation Thursday to determine who leaked the photo.

[From Us Weekly]

As Celebitchy pointed out, there are still people who will continue to deny that anything all that bad happened. I don’t understand how they manage to delude themselves, but some people need to function in a state of denial, and nothing will pull them out of that.

It is incredibly upsetting that Rihanna’s photo was released, and it means someone – or multiple someones – at the LAPD can obviously be bought. I truly hope they find that person and fire them. But it does shed light on just how severe this assault was, and just how much Chris Brown should be punished.