Rihanna says she feels ashamed that she returned to Chris Brown after he attacked her in April, leaving her bruised and bloody.

The singer tells "Good Morning America": "That's embarrassing -- that's the type of person that I fell in love with. So far in love, so unconditional, that I went back."

Brown was arrested Feb. 8, hours after he was accused of beating Rihanna in a car after the couple attended a pre-Grammy Awards party. He pleaded guilty to felony assault.

A judge ordered 20-year-old Brown, and 21-year-old Rihanna to stay away from each other.

In the interview yesterday, she said: "I am strong. This happened to me. I didn't cause this. I didn't do it. This can happen to me and it can happen to anybody."

Oprah Winfrey says she's keeping singer BeBe Winans off her show until domestic violence charges against him are resolved.

The gospel singer had taped appearances on Winfrey's "karaoke challenge" and was on last Friday. Following the show, some bloggers questioned whether Winfrey was guilty of a double standard by including Winans when she took a strong stand against domestic violence following Chris Brown's assault of then-girl friend Rihanna.

Winans was charged with misdemeanor domestic assault last winter for allegedly pushing ex-wife Debra Winans to the ground. He has a court date set for Jan. 20.

Winfrey spokesman Don Halcombe says Winans is off the karaoke segment.

Morgan Freeman has settled a lawsuit related to a 2008 car accident that seriously injured him and a passenger, according to court records posted yesterday. Terms of the settlement were not released.

Demaris Meyer filed a federal lawsuit against the Academy Award-winning actor in February, claiming Freeman had been drinking the night of the accident last summer and was negligent when the car ran off the side of a rural highway near his Mississippi Delta home.

The 1997 Nissan Maxima belonged to Meyer but she said Freeman was driving when the car flipped several times and landed upright in a ditch about 75 miles south of Memphis, Tenn. No charges were filed.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed in court records. U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills closed the case in a ruling yesterday.

Freeman's attorney, Jack Hayes Jr., would not discuss the terms of the deal, but said "we're all glad it's over with."

Meyer's attorney said she would comment later.

Sir Ian McKellen stopped by "The View" yesterday for a friendly chat about his latest project, but ended up schooling Whoopi Goldberg on the difference between Dumbledore and Gandalf.

After discussions about his TV series "The Prisoner" and a semi-testy exchange with Elisabeth Hasselbeck about flu shots and government health care, McKellen got asked: "Are you coming back in 'Harry Potter'?" The question, from the show's moderator, silenced the audience and confused the rest of the panel.

"Well, if I were Michael Gambon, I might. But I don't play Dumbledore," he explained. "I play in 'Lord of the Rings.'"

ESPN had better watch its back.

Comedy Central has ordered a pilot from the satirical news magazine The Onion.

The prospective half-hour scripted series will be based on The Onion's Sports Network, an online video series that parodies sports shows -- especially those on ESPN.

Onion News Network director Will Graham says in a statement to expect "the most intense sports coverage humanity has yet witnessed."

A spokeswoman for Comedy Central says the pilot constitutes the first collaboration between the two comedy institutions.

The Onion, founded in Madison, Wis., was long famous for its mock headlines when it launched the "ONN" in 2007. That's its online video department.

Actress Angela Lansbury will be the first recipient of the Stephen Sondheim Award from a Washington-area theater that has produced more of the composer's works than any other U.S. theater.

Signature Theatre announced yesterday that it will honor Lansbury, 84, in April at a gala celebration and fundraising event for the Arlington, Va., theater.

Lansbury is known to many for her role in television's "Murder She Wrote," when she played detective Jessica Fletcher for 12 seasons in the 1980s and 1990s.

She also is a five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star. Two of Lansbury's Tonys are for Sondheim musicals, the 1974 revival of "Gypsy" and "Sweeney Todd" in 1979.

Sondheim, 79, noted that Lansbury first appeared on the musical stage in "Anyone Can Whistle," for which he wrote the score in 1964.

"That appearance was a gift to the musical theater, although perhaps not such a gift to her, since the show only ran for nine performances," Sondheim said in a statement. "I am thrilled that Signature Theatre is helping me make it up to her by giving her the first Stephen Sondheim Award."

Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics for "West Side Story" in 1957 and has won nine Tonys throughout his career, helps approve the recipients of the award.

Lansbury returns to Broadway this month in Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" costarring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Mackenzie Carpenter's video program, "Omnivore," is available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.