During and interview on Friday with FOX News Grett Van Susteren, TMZ head honcho Harvey Levin spoke for the first time about the controversial (and douche bag) decision to post the heartbreaking LAPD picture of a post-fight RIHANNA. But Harvey doesn’t see this the way we do (FSL chose NOT to post the picture out of respect for Rih.)

Levin’s focus, instead is on the fact that by releasing it’s internal investigation announcement, the LAPD inadvertently authenticated TMZ’s photo (which they paid a reported $62,500 for). 

And I’m not — believe me, I’m not saying anything bad at all about the LAPD. I mean, what they needed to do, they felt, was conduct an internal affairs investigation because they felt there was a leak. In so doing, as you say, they did authenticate the picture…Now, I should be quick to say, Greta, that we got this picture legally. And we — when we got the picture, we believed it was not an LAPD picture, and we still are still not convinced it is. 

Levin then went on to speculate, rather light-heartily about the current state of affairs between Rihanna and her alleged attacker CHRIS BROWN. 

You know, Greta, the bottom line is, is that I can tell you this much, and there are certain things I can publish. Chris Brown is not going to just say, I’m going to lay down on this one and not fight. I guarantee you that Chris Brown is going to mount a defense in this case. I know that. He will mount a defense in this case. So the picture is not the be-all and the end-all as far as he’s concerned.

But the interesting thing is, during the interview Gretta take note to call Levin a journalist, to which Levin agrees. But then he seems to have NO remorse for showing the investigation photos of a 20 yr old (Rihanna turned 21 this past Friday) domestic violence victim. (In just about ANY other case in this country, domestic violence victims are always afforded anonymity unless they choose otherwise and all supporting materials, pics, etc is kept out of the media.)

But in this case, although Levin seems to get the horrific nature of the pic, he still has no remorse for making it public. 

But what it does do is it puts a face on what both sides really have been kind of leaking out over the last couple of weeks, that there’s one side, there’s a second side. Well, the bottom line is, here’s the photograph, here’s the end result. And frankly, Greta, I think it’s pretty horrifying.

No. I mean, he’s made a statement saying he’s sorry and he’s consulting his pastor, but nothing of substance. And he frankly would be crazy to start going out there and defending this. It’s just not going to look good if he does, and especially, you know, given what we’re seeing here, Greta. I mean, I’m not sure what your reaction to it was, but my reaction was just — I mean, honestly, to me, you know, this really does make you sit there and understand domestic violence, that it’s not just theoretically listening to two people arguing. I mean, you really, really see it. And…It’s a different than most of the cases — just one other quick thing. It’s different than most of these cases where there are faceless people and we don’t know their names. We’ve all been reporting that it’s Rihanna for the last two weeks, so there’s no privacy in that sense in this case because everybody’s been saying Rihanna’s the alleged victim. This merely puts that face on it. And my reaction to this photo was pretty strong.

Harvey Levin is full of shit. If this was his daughter, his little sister, or even his friend, there’s no way he would’ve EVER aired that pic. 

Do you agree?

Thanks to the homie Marv for the heads up on the interview.