Rihanna isn’t the first celebrity to turn down the job of poster child for perfection, but she’s received more attention than many for refusing it.

The infinite antics of Ri-Ri are instantly perusable on Instagram, Twitter and celebrity gossip websites. Here she is smoking a J or doing shots, there she is baring her butt over thigh-high couture boots and getting spanked in the video for S&M and snuggling in bed with the man who severely beat her four years ago.

For that, she’s received some high-profile scolding, even from people close to her own age such as Lena Dunham, of HBO’s Girls, for not being a good role model.

Rihanna has no interest in assuming the mantle of shining public example, no matter who tries to tie one to her shoulders. Last year, she told Vogue that the role-model expectation “became more of my job than I wanted it to be. … I just want to make music. That’s it.”

So far, that attitude hasn’t hurt her prospects. At the tender age of 24, she’s listed by Forbes as the fourth most powerful celebrity after Jennifer Lopez, Oprah and Justin Bieber, with a net worth of $53 million and a “social rank” of No. 2 (based on social-media activity), behind only Lady Gaga.

Top women pop stars from Madonna to Nicki Minaj and Gaga have made careers out of pushing boundaries, knowing they will both face more censure and gain more notoriety than their male counterparts might. The difference with Rihanna is that she went a taboo too far — getting back together with singer Chris Brown, whose vicious assault following an argument sent her to a hospital. A leaked photo of her battered face let the whole world know there was no doubt about it.

In early February, after Rihanna went to Brown’s court hearing to support him, prominent editor Tina Brown tweeted that she was “a big fat zero of a role model for girls.”

Rihanna then told Rolling Stone magazine, “I decided it was more important for me to be happy. I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of it. Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake.”

Teen-dating violence is occurring at alarming rates, with two-thirds of both boys and girls saying they’ve experienced it at least once, and half of them more than once, according to recent studies and the federal Centers for Disease Control. But Rihanna’s decision to return to Brown deserves understanding, says Carol Arthur, director of the Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis, a 33-year-old organization that offers counseling and other resources to perpetrators, victims and their families.

Rihanna is “a young woman leading a very stressful life, and then to have to deal with being traumatized like that in front of the world, the isolation must be tremendous for her,” Arthur said. “Why wouldn’t she turn to the person she’s shared so much with? We in the (domestic violence) world would love to see her take a strong stand, of course. But ending relationships isn’t something that happens overnight. Research tells us that there’s a period of coming and going — maybe five, six times — before the person lets go.”

If the notion that Rihanna or any celebrity has a public obligation to act like a good girl was ever defensible, it now seems dated. But relatability is another matter, and that muddies the waters.