Rihanna was herself beaten up by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown when she was just 21, requiring an emergency room visit and shocking the world when gruesome photos leaked to the tabloid press. One in four women reports having experienced domestic violence, and nearly one in three teens who have been in relationships report abuse of some kind. Every day, an average of three women and one man are murdered in the United States by an intimate partner.
The real violence suggested in these lines is a widespread reality. "Watch me burn," becomes real rather than metaphorical. Then, the fire that fills up the screen behind Rihanna becomes a symbol of actual violence. It seems like all this burning in both the lyrics and the video must be some sort of metaphor for the destruction that comes from abusive relationships-until Eminem's bone-chilling final line. The final line of the song is, quite frankly, a death threat: "Imma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire." And the final scene of the video shows both Rihanna and Eminem standing there with their backs to us, watching a house burn down. Actors Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan both literally play with fire as they depict an increasingly violent relationship full of drama and mutual abuse. In the "Love the Way You Lie" music video, Rihanna sings her lines standing in front of a burning house. What first seems to be only a clichéd metaphor transforms into something uncomfortably real. Eminem closes it by rapping about tying a woman to the bed and lighting the house on fire. Rihanna opens the song by singing about burning.
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