rihanna information biography

International popstar Rihanna released her first album in 2005 and is known for such No. 1 hits as "Umbrella," "SOS," "Diamonds," and "Work."

Who Is Rihanna?

Popstar Rihanna signed with Def Jam records at age 16 and in 2005 released her first album Music of the Sun , which sold more than two million copies worldwide. She went on to release more albums and an array of hit songs, including "Unfaithful," "Umbrella," "Disturbia," "Take a Bow," "Diamonds" and "We Found Love." A global pop star with an unrelentingly edgy image, Rihanna has also won multiple industry accolades, including Grammys and MTV awards.

Singer Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael Parish on the Caribbean island of Barbados. She is the eldest of three children born to Monica Fenty, an accountant, and Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor. Rihanna's childhood was marred by her father's struggles with addictions to alcohol and crack cocaine and her parents' marital problems — they divorced when she was 14 years old.

Rihanna also struggled with crippling headaches for several years during her childhood, a condition she attempted to hide from her friends and classmates so that they would not think she was abnormal. "I never expressed how I felt," she remembered. "I always kept it in. I would go to school ... you would never know there was something wrong with me."

Move to the United States

As a teenager, Rihanna turned to singing as a release from her troubles at home. She formed a girl group with two classmates; when they were 15 years old, they scored an audition with music producer Evan Rodgers, who was visiting the island with his Barbadian wife. Rogers was awed by the precociously beautiful and talented Rihanna, to the unfortunate detriment of her two friends. "The minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist," he admitted.

Less than a year later, when Rihanna was only 16 years old, she left Barbados to move in with Rogers and his wife in Connecticut and work on recording a demo album. "When I left Barbados, I didn't look back," Rihanna recalled. "I wanted to do what I had to do, even if it meant moving to America."

"Pon de Replay," "Unfaithful" and "SOS"

Only eight months later, in August 2005, she released her first single, "Pon de Replay," a reggae-influenced club track that reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart and announced Rihanna as the next up-and-coming pop star. Her first album, Music of the Sun , released later that month, reached No. 10 on the Billboard albums chart and also featured the single "If It's Lovin' That You Want." Rihanna released her second album, A Girl Like Me , the next year, spawning two major hits in "Unfaithful" and "SOS," Rihanna's first No. 1 single.

"Umbrella"

In 2007, Rihanna effected a transformation from cute teen pop princess to superstar and sex symbol with her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad , fueled by its smash hit lead single "Umbrella," featuring Jay-Z. "It shows such growth for her as an artist," Jay-Z said about the track. "If you listen to the lyrics to that song, you know the depth and how far she's come."

"Don't Stop the Music," "Disturbia" and "Hate That I Love You"

"Umbrella" topped the Billboard singles chart and earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The album reached No. 2 on the charts and also featured the singles "Shut Up and Drive" and "Don't Stop the Music," the latter featuring a sample of Michael Jackson 's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded , released the following year, scored further hits in "Disturbia," "Take a Bow" and "Hate That I Love You."

"Only Girl (In the World)" and "S&M"

Continuing her onslaught of hit albums, Rihanna released Rated R in 2009 with the singles "Hard" and "Rude Boy." Her 2010 album, Loud , was once again a commercial success behind the songs "What's My Name," "Only Girl (In the World)" and "S&M."

Besides her own laundry list of hit songs, Rihanna collaborated on a host of popular songs by other artists from around this time, including Jay-Z's "Run this Town," Eminem 's "Love the Way You Lie," Maroon 5's "If I Never See Your Face Again" and Kanye West 's "All of the Lights."

"We Found Love"

In 2011, Rihanna released her sixth studio album: Talk That Talk . The album included "We Found Love," a track with DJ Calvin Harris that won the 2013 Grammy Award for best short-form music video.

"Diamonds" and "Stay"

On her Grammy-winning 2012 album Unapologetic , Rihanna turned out such hits as the No. 1 Sia Furler tune "Diamonds" and "Stay," featuring Mikky Ekko. (Interestingly, Unapologetic was the first Rihanna album to hit No. 1 on the pop charts.) She also worked with Coldplay on the track "Princess of China" and, the following year, reached No. 1 again with another Eminem collaboration, "The Monster."

Known for her sexually provocative imagery and wild style, Rihanna made headlines for the sheer dress she wore to the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards ceremony in June 2014. She was there to receive the CFDA's Fashion Icon Award and told the crowd that "Fashion has always been my defense mechanism," according to an Associated Press report. Rihanna acknowledged that there were some rules to fashion, but explained that "rules are meant to be broken." Around this time, the singer made a bold professional move as well: She switched from the Def Jam label to Jay-Z's Roc Nation.

"FourFiveSeconds"

In August 2015, NBC announced that Rihanna would be the key adviser on The Voice 's ninth season. That same year she contributed vocals to the single "FourFiveSeconds," a collaboration with West and famed Beatle Paul McCartney , as well as releasing "B**** Better Have My Money," a tune allegedly inspired by court wranglings with her former manager that also featured a highly controversial, violent music video. In 2015 Rihanna also became the first artist in history to have 100 million singles digitally downloaded and streamed.

"Work"

In late January 2016, Rihanna released the album Anti , allowing Jay-Z's online streaming site Tidal to exclusively feature the collection of tracks for a week. The gambit paid off for the struggling service, with one million trial subscribers joining Tidal in less than a day to partake in a download promotion for Anti . The album's lead single, "Work," featuring rapper Drake , earned two Grammy nominations. In 2017, Rihanna scored another No. 1 hit as a featured artist on DJ Khaled 's "Wild Thoughts."

Branching out to screen work, Rihanna co-starred in the sci-fi flick Battleship (2012) and later voiced the lead character in the animated blockbuster Home (2015).

In 2017, Rihanna made recurring appearances in season 5 of Bates Motel , and earned a prominent role in the science fiction flick Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets . That year, fans also got their first glimpse of the pop superstar alongside Sandra Bullock , Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway in trailers for Ocean's 8 , a female-led spinoff of the popular Ocean's Trilogy which hit theaters in June 2018.

The following spring, Rihanna co-starred with Donald Glover , aka Childish Gambino, in the Amazon musical Guava Island .

Philanthropy and Personal Life

In 2012, Rihanna launched the nonprofit Clara Lionel Foundation, named after her grandmother, which supports and funds education and early response programs around the world. For her philanthropic efforts, she was honored with the President's Award at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards.

Rihanna has also made headlines in her personal life, although often for circumstances beyond her control. She first made gossip column headlines in 2006 when rumors swirled that she was having an affair with her mentor, Jay-Z, though she and Jay-Z dismissed such allegations as ridiculous. Later, she was romantically linked to billionaire Saudi businessman Hassan Jameel, before their split was reported in early 2020.

In late 2020, Rihanna began dating rapper A$AP Rocky . In January 2022, it was revealed that the couple is expecting their first child.

Chris Brown

In 2009, Rihanna was the center of a media firestorm after a domestic violence incident in which her then-boyfriend Chris Brown assaulted her before an awards show. The incident sparked a huge public outpouring of support for Rihanna, and she became a spokesperson against domestic violence. "This happened to me," she said in an interview with Diane Sawyer. "It can happen to anyone."

"I put my guard up so hard," she said in a separate interview with Rolling Stone . "I didn't want people to see me cry. I didn't want people to feel bad for me. It was a very vulnerable time in my life, and I refused to let that be the image. I wanted them to see me as, 'I'm fine, I'm tough.' I put that up until it felt real."

In 2012, Rihanna appeared to be reconnecting with Brown. The pair worked together on the song "Birthday Cake" released that year. Rihanna also spoke very candidly with Oprah Winfrey about her relationship with Brown that August. She told Winfrey that Brown may have been the love of her life and she has developed "a very close friendship" with him. The two officially dated again for a time, with Rihanna maintaining in a Rolling Stone interview that Brown had changed and that any form of abuse would be unacceptable.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth date: February 20, 1988
• Birth Country: Barbados
• Best Known For: International popstar Rihanna released her first album in 2005 and is known for such No. 1 hits as "Umbrella," "SOS," "Diamonds," and "Work."
• Astrological Sign: Pisces
• Combermere School
• Nationalities
• Antiguan/Barbudan

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

• When the whole worlds turning left, it's when I'm going right. I need someone to let me be just who I am inside.
• I believe in second chances, I just don't believe everyone deserves them.
• Love isn't complicated—people are.
• I'm rebellious through my music, through my fashion, tattoos and my hair.
• I have been conservative in my love life.
• Boys will be boys!!! 'Cause they can't be men!
• People think because we're young, we aren't complex but that's not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.
• I could never identify with that word, 'weak.' I couldn't have come out of this if I was weak. No way.
• After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I'd rather just live my truth and take the backlash. I can handle it.
• I decided it was more important for me to be happy, and I wasn't going to let anyone's opinion get in the way of that. Even if it's a mistake, it's my mistake.
• You know, when I started to ... have my race be highlighted, it was mostly when I would do business deals. ... And, you know, that never ends, by the way. It’s still a thing. And it’s the thing that makes me want to prove people wrong. It almost excites me; I know what they’re expecting and I can’t wait to show them that I’m here to exceed those expectations.

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The fabulous life of Rihanna, from her Barbados roots to the Super Bowl, and Fenty Beauty's game-changing role in makeup

• Rihanna is one of the most influential artists of her generation.
• Among other achievements, she has 14 No. 1 songs and nine Grammy Awards.
• She has also made her mark as a humanitarian, entrepreneur, and makeup mogul.

At just 35 years old, Rihanna has already achieved icon status.

Over the course of her relatively short career, Rihanna has positioned herself as one of the most influential artists of her generation. She is the most successful artist in the history of Billboard's Pop Songs Chart — not to mention her already-lasting mark as a humanitarian, entrepreneur, and makeup mogul.

Here's a complete timeline of Rihanna's biggest achievements and most iconic moments.

As a child in Barbados, Rihanna reportedly used music to escape from "anxieties of a violent home life."

Rihanna — born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 — was raised in Barbados. She has said that growing up, her father was addicted to drugs and physically abusive towards her mother .

She has also joked that she " annoyed every one of [her] neighbors," and her mom referred to her voice as an "annoying little husky man voice."

Record producer Evan Rogers met Rihanna in 2003, while he was vacationing in Barbados with his wife . The 15-year-old singer told Rogers that being in the music business was "all I've ever wanted to do." She had no formal training in music or dance, but Rogers remembers her remarkable "presence."

"It was more likely a much more urgent need to escape from the anxieties of a violent home life into the illusion of security and boundless love that a life onstage seemed to offer," he told John Seabrook, as recounted in his book "The Song Machine."

"That desire, more than any inborn talent, is what fans will connect to, and that is what record men look for in a new artist. It's the one thing they can't manufacture."

Rihanna signed to Def Jam in 2005. She was taken under the wing of the label's then-president, Jay-Z.

In December 2004, Rihanna recorded the Caribbean jam "Pon de Replay" and sent the song off to several record labels .

In early 2005, a then-16-year-old Rihanna flew to New York City to audition for Def Jam's newly appointed president and CEO, Jay-Z . According to a 2007 interview with The Guardian , she sang a Whitney Houston cover ("For the Love of You") and two originals, one being "Pon de Replay."

"I was like, 'Oh God, he's right there, I can't look, I can't look, I can't look!'" she told The Guardian. "I remember being extremely quiet. I was very shy. I was cold the entire time. I had butterflies. I'm sitting across from Jay-Z. Like, Jay-Z. I was star-struck."

"The audition definitely went well," she continued. "Jay-Z said, 'There's only two ways out. Out the door after you sign this deal. Or through this window.' And we were on the 29th floor. Very flattering."

Rihanna's debut single "Pon de Replay" was an immediate hit.

The studio version of "Pon de Replay" was released in May 2005. The dance-pop, reggae-infused track hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 when Rihanna was just 17 years old.

One year later, in May 2006, she scored her first No. 1 single.

"S.O.S." was the debut single from Rihanna's sophomore album, "A Girl Like Me." It reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 three months after its release on Valentine's Day and maintained its reign for three consecutive weeks.

The game-changing track "Umbrella" was released on March 29, 2007.

As Billboard's Joe Lynch writes, when "Umbrella (feat. Jay-Z)" dropped , "Rihanna already had two albums and four top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits under her belt. But for a burgeoning pop icon, she was short just one thing: An instantly iconic pop smash that would prove she was in it for the long game."

"'Umbrella' was that ubiquitous smash," Lynch writes, "an inescapable hit that hit No. 1, soundtracked the summer of 2017 and introduced Bad Gal RiRi to your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa…basically, anyone with a set of ears."

She took home her first Grammy Award in 2008.

Rihanna earned four nominations for the 50th annual Grammy Awards , which was the first time she was recognized by the Recording Academy.

On February 10, 2008, Rihanna and Jay-Z took home the trophy for best rap/sung collaboration. Their smash hit "Umbrella" was also nominated for record of the year, but lost to "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse.

She collaborated with Drake for the first time in 2010.

Just months after they sparked reports of a romance , Rihanna and Drake debuted their first collaborative track, "What's My Name?"

The steamy track was released as the second single from Rihanna's fifth studio album on October 26, 2010. It peaked at No. 1 and even earned the duo a Grammy nomination for best rap/sung collaboration. (It lost, but to another Rihanna song: her 2010 collaboration with Kanye West , "All of the Lights").

"What's My Name?" is especially notable for marking the beginning of the duo's beloved creative relationship , which would later yield hit songs like "Take Care" and "Work."

Rihanna's fifth studio album "Loud" earned her first Grammy nomination for album of the year.

"Loud" was released on November 12, 2010, and spawned three No. 1 songs: "What's My Name?," "Only Girl," and "S&M."

"Loud" earned Rihanna her first and, to date, only Grammy nomination for album of the year , the show's most coveted award. It lost to Adele's "21."

She made her big screen debut with "Battleship" in May 2012.

The summer blockbuster "Battleship" was loosely based on the board game of the same name. It was critically panned , but praise-worthy for Rihanna's big screen debut — for which she was chosen specifically by the film's director, Peter Berg .

"Her videos are super hot and I'd watched them a lot. It clicked for me though after she got assaulted and she went on Diane Sawyer's show and talked very frankly about that night and what happened," Berg told GQ, referring to Rihanna's 2009 assault by then-boyfriend Chris Brown .

"She was so intelligent and articulate," he continued. "I remember thinking, 'Wow. There's much more to this woman than I'd thought.' I then saw her do this stupid little skit on 'Saturday Night Live' where she was in a classroom giving a hard time to these boys. She was funny as all hell! I knew in that moment that the girl could act. No question."

In November 2012, "Unapologetic" became Rihanna's first No. 1 album.

Rihanna's seventh studio album shot to the top of the Billboard 200, becoming Rihanna's first No. 1 album , and won the Grammy for best urban contemporary album on January 26, 2014.

The album's "stark, shadowy R&B," wrote Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan , "is confrontationally honest and sung within an inch of its life, whether she's turning a strip-club anthem into a declaration of independence ('Pour It Out') or pleading at the piano ('Stay')."

Rihanna was given the American Music Awards' first-ever Icon Award in 2013.

The 2013 American Music Awards hailed Rihanna as " the voice of our time" (Bill Maher's words) and the best-selling digital artist of all time (Nielsen's official title).

After performing the "Unapologetic" hit single "Diamonds," Rihanna was presented with the first-ever Icon Award by her mother, Monica Braithwaite.

"I know the journey and your career has not always been an easy one," Braithwaite said, according to Rolling Stone . "But tonight, I applaud and admire you for being so strong and so positive and so humble and so focused. I'm so blessed to be part of this historic moment."

She received the CFDA Fashion Icon award in 2014.

Rihanna walked the 2014 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) red carpet in a sparkling, sheer gown and little else. But when asked about the daring fashion choice, she laughed it off in a classic Rihanna style: "Do my tits bother you? They're covered in Swarovksi crystals, girl!"

Rihanna was named the creative director of Puma in 2014.

As reported by Time , Rihanna was tapped to oversee a women's line of clothing for Puma, focusing on fitness and training clothes. 

"It really came from her," Adam Petrick, Puma's global brand and marketing director, told The New York Times . "Though we originally started talking about it in terms of advertising, she wanted to express herself in this way. They said to us, 'We can change the face of the brand from a product perspective.'" She did not just want to be a "face."

She was also named a "brand ambassador" for the company, alongside star athletes like Usain Bolt.

The role ultimately led to Rihanna's Fenty x Puma venture, which has yielded fashion moments like the award-winning suede Creepers, iconic fur sliders, and haute-couture athleisure.

Rihanna dropped her most celebrated album yet, "Anti," on January 28, 2016.

Rihanna's eighth studio album "Anti" was surprise-released after three years of anticipation. It was unlike anything the pop star had ever released . It went to No. 1 two weeks after its debut (stalled by a Tidal-exclusive release). It eventually became the first album by a Black female artist to spend 300 weeks on the Billboard 200.

Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos called it "a sprawling masterpiece of psychedelic soul" and "a rich full-length statement."

"After more than a decade as a superstar of the singles chart, Rihanna has become an album artist," Spanos wrote. "After years as a singer largely defined by her production, it finally feels like Rihanna is in charge of her own sound, remaking pop on her own terms."

"Anti" was nominated for best urban contemporary album and best recording package at the 2017 Grammy Awards.

The album's biggest hit, "Work," was nominated for record of the year. Two of the album's sleeper hits, "Needed Me" and "Kiss It Better," were nominated for best R&B performance and best R&B song, respectively.

Rihanna's Grammy nominations that year also included album of the year for her work on Drake's "Views" and best rap/sung performance for her vocals on Kanye West's "Famous." She didn't leave the ceremony with any awards ( and fans will never forget ).

Rihanna accepted the Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 VMAs.

Before Rihanna accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards — presented by Drake, who also casually confessed his love to her — she performed a medley of her greatest hits, including "Only Girl in the World," "Rude Boy," and "Bitch Better Have My Money."

Instead of putting on one career-spanning performance of hits, as per tradition for the award, the pop star gave four such performances over the course of the show .

Rihanna was Harvard's Humanitarian of the Year in 2017.

In March 2017, the Harvard University Foundation honored Rihanna as Humanitarian of the Year , in recognition of her dedication to promoting educational programs.

In 2012, Rihanna founded the Clara Lionel Foundation Global Scholarship Program, named after her grandparents, for students from Caribbean countries going to college in the United States.

She also supports the Global Partnership for Education and Global Citizen Project, which provides education access to tens of millions of young students around the world.

Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty in September 2017.

Rihanna made her foray into the world of beauty products on September 8, 2017 , when Fenty Beauty was officially made available online and at Sephora.

The makeup line's tour de force was its whopping 40 shades of foundation , which many hailed as the new standard of inclusivity for skin tones. The darkest shades appeared to sell out in record time .

Time magazine even listed Fenty Beauty among its best inventions of the year for 2017, in large part thanks to Rihanna's mission of representation.

"It was important that every woman felt included in this brand," Rihanna told  Time . "We are all so different, with our own unique skin tones, so we started with the 40 foundation shades out the gate."

"I never could have anticipated the emotional connection that women are having with the products and the brand as a whole. Some are finding their shade of foundation for the first time, getting emotional at the counter," Rihanna said. "That's something I will never get over."

She launched Savage x Fenty in May 2018.

Savage x Fenty launched on May 11, 2018. The size-inclusive lingerie line was immediately praised for including people of "all shapes, sizes, and colors," a reputation that it still boasts to this day .

Rihanna channeled the pope at the 2018 Met Gala, for which she was a co-chair.

In one of her more iconic fashion moments, Rihanna attended the 2018 Met Gala in a silver, bedazzled gown  and accompanying robe.

She completed her elaborate look with a Stephen Jones Millinery hat crafted in the style of the pope's tiara. This headdress is normally reserved for religious ceremonies — a nod to the night's theme, "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination."

The complete outfit took 250 hours to sew and 500 hours to hand-embroider .

Rihanna starred in the ensemble film "Ocean's 8," released on June 5, 2018.

Rihanna was cast as a hacker named Nine Ball in the heist comedy, which was conceived as an all-female spinoff of the popular "Ocean's 11" series.

While the film received mixed reviews , Rihanna was praised for adding "extra mischief and attitude to the octet," in the words of Film Journal International's Kevin Lally .

She welcomed her first child with A$AP Rocky in May 2022.

Rihanna began dating A$AP Rocky, her longtime friend and collaborator , in late 2020. Two years later, she gave birth to the couple's first child, a son named RZA Athelston Mayers.

Rihanna described motherhood as "legendary" in the family's cover story for British Vogue .

"It's everything. You really don't remember life before, that's the craziest thing ever," she said. "You literally try to remember it — and there are photos of my life before — but the feeling, the desires, the things that you enjoy, everything, you just don't identify with it because you don't even allow yourself mentally to get that far, because… Because it doesn't matter."

Rihanna headlined the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, where she also revealed her second pregnancy.

Despite not releasing a new album in seven years , Rihanna was tapped to headline the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, joining the ranks of legends like Beyoncé, Madonna, and Prince.

For her first live performance since 2019, Rihanna delivered a show-stopping medley of hits , from "We Found Love" to "Wild Thoughts," and broke the internet by revealing her growing baby bump .

She reportedly gave birth to her second child in August 2023.

Sources told People that Rihanna feels her family is "complete" after welcoming her second child with Rocky.

• Main content

Rihanna Biography: The Journey from Barbados to Global Superstardom

Jonathan Kao

April 3, 2024

Robyn Rihanna Fenty, known to the world simply as Rihanna, hails from the beautiful island of Barbados. She entered the music scene like a breath of fresh air and has since evolved into a global icon, continuously redefining the landscape of pop music . Her journey from a small Caribbean island to international stardom is as inspiring as it is impressive.

With vocals that can command the atmosphere of any track, Rihanna has amassed an extensive discography that traverses multiple genres and themes, cementing her status as a versatile and highly influential figure in contemporary music. Her impact extends beyond the microphone as she’s become a savvy businesswoman, actress, and style symbol whose influence is felt across different sectors.

Rihanna Facts

Key takeaways.

• Rihanna’s life is a transformative journey from Barbados to global fame.
• She has significantly influenced pop music and fashion industries.
• Rihanna’s ventures showcase her diverse talents beyond singing.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Rihanna’s journey to stardom took root in her early years spent in St. Michael, Barbados, and unfolded rapidly with the release of her first album, marking the start of an illustrious career.

Family and Childhood

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, she spent her formative years soaking up the rich musical culture of Barbados. At a young age, she exhibited a keen interest in music, which was nurtured during her time at Combermere, a prestigious Barbadian school.

Discovery and First Album

Rihanna’s life changed when music producer Evan Rogers discovered her. He was vacationing in Barbados and was introduced to her through mutual friends. Struck by her talent, Rogers helped Rihanna record a demo featuring the soon-to-be hit “Pon de Replay”. This demo landed in the hands of Jay-Z at Def Jam, who recognized her potential instantly. Following an intense audition, where she impressed Jay-Z with her charismatic performance, Rihanna signed a contract with Def Jam and released her debut album “Music of the Sun”, which catapulted her into the spotlight.

Musical Evolution and Influence

Rihanna’s remarkable journey in the music industry demonstrates a blend of diverse styles and an influence that reshapes the pop and R&B genres. Her evolution as an artist is marked by an ambitious approach to music, pushing boundaries and setting new standards.

Artistic Style and Vocal Abilities

Rihanna’s artistic style is a fusion of pop , R&B , and reggae . Her vocal prowess is characterized by a distinct and versatile voice that adapts to various musical settings. Her range allows for emotive ballads as well as up-tempo hits.

Collaborations and Notable Hits

Rihanna has collaborated with many top artists , from Drake to Eminem , and Jay-Z to Paul McCartney . Notable hits like Umbrella , We Found Love , and Don’t Stop The Music have topped the Billboard Hot 100 , with Umbrella signaling her breakthrough on international charts.

Awards and Achievements

Rihanna’s trophy cabinet showcases numerous awards, including several Grammy Awards for her work on albums like Loud , Unapologetic , and singles such as “Only Girl (In the World)” and “All of the Lights.” Her albums frequently chart on the Billboard 200 , underscoring her commercial success.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some of the most common inquiries about the superstar from Barbados, providing a snapshot of her journey and achievements.

What is Rihanna’s real name?

Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty. Her middle name, Rihanna, has become her global brand.

How did Rihanna’s early life and upbringing influence her career?

Growing up in St. Michael Parish, her childhood experiences of hardship and her exposure to music sparked her resolve to pursue a singing career.

What are some noteworthy events from Rihanna’s early career?

After signing with Def Jam Recordings, she quickly rose to prominence with her hit single “Umbrella,” which has become an iconic song.

From which Caribbean island does Rihanna originate?

Rihanna hails from the beautiful island of Barbados, known for its rich culture and musical heritage.

Can you detail Rihanna’s rise to fame in the music industry?

At just 16 years of age, Rihanna moved to the United States to work with music producer Evan Rogers, setting the stage for her successful run as a pop and R&B sensation.

What is the net worth of Rihanna as of the latest reports?

As of recent estimates, Rihanna’s net worth is valued at over $1.7 billion, making her one of the richest female musicians in the world.

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The 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women+

Rihanna is the 21st century's most influential musician.

Jenny Gathright

Rihanna performs on stage at the BRIT Awards in 2016. Photo Illustration: Ian Gavan/Getty Images and Angela Hsieh/NPR hide caption

Rihanna performs on stage at the BRIT Awards in 2016.

It's not enough to make list after list. The Turning the Tables project seeks to suggest alternatives to the traditional popular music canon, and to do more than that, too: to stimulate conversation about how hierarchies emerge and endure. This year, Turning the Tables considers how women and non-binary artists are shaping music in our moment, from the pop mainstream to the sinecures of jazz and contemporary classical music. Our list of the 200 Greatest Songs By Women + offers a soundtrack to a new century. This series of essays takes on another task.

Turning The Tables

Women Are The Fabric Of 21st Century Pop

The 25 arguments writers make in these pieces challenge the usual definitions of influence. Some rethink the building legacies of popular artists; others celebrate those who create within subcultures, their innovations rippling outward over time. As always, women forge new pathways in sound; today, they also make waves under the surface of culture by confronting, in their music, the increased fluidity of "woman" itself. What is a woman? It's a timeless question on the surface, but one deeply engaged with whatever historical moment in which it is asked. Our 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21 st Century illuminate its complexities. –Ann Powers

The cover of Rihanna 's 2016 album ANTI , created by artist Roy Natchum and commissioned by Rihanna, features the singer as a young child with a crown that's fallen down over her head so that it covers her eyes. She holds a balloon and red paint drips down over her from the top corner of the canvas. Overlaying the entire painting is a poem rendered in Braille, written by the poet Chloe Mitchell in collaboration with Rihanna and Natchum.

"I sometimes fear that I am misunderstood," it starts. "It is simply because what I want to say, what I need to say, won't be heard. Heard in a way I so rightfully deserve. What I choose to say is of so much substance that people just won't understand the depth of my message..."

Rihanna at the album artwork reveal for ANTI in 2015. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for WESTBURY ROAD ENTERTAINMENT LLC hide caption

Rihanna at the album artwork reveal for ANTI in 2015.

What does it mean to think of Rihanna, global superstar, as unheard? Her music has soundtracked most of this century, and that kind of ubiquity is easily taken for granted, like air. She released a full-length studio album every single year between 2005 and 2012, save for a one-year break in 2008. Of the 61 Rihanna songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 14 of them were No. 1 hits, and 31 of them were top 10 hits. No album has landed as many No. 1 songs on Billboard 's Dance Club Songs chart as ANTI , the album Rihanna released in 2016 after an unprecedented (for her) hiatus.

For most of my life, there has been a Rihanna single — or multiple Rihanna singles, or multiple songs defined by a Rihanna hook — playing prominently on Top 40 radio. So it's not enough to say Rihanna is the air. Rihanna shaped the texture and taste of the air by consistently doing what pop, at its very best, is supposed to do: taking disparate genres — rock, EDM, dancehall, trap and even dubstep — and turning them into something that makes sense to us, to everyone. If she's not seen as taking musical risks, it's only because so many of them paid off.

Rihanna is the most important pop artist of the century because of these contributions to music — and her music is beloved. It's still worth asking, however, how we as an audience can adequately love Rihanna the person.

When Rihanna received the Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, Drake introduced her. His speech is memorable for his cute, unsurprising and ultimately distracting faux-confession: "She's someone I've been in love with since I was 22 years old." Equally instructive, though, are the parts of Drake's speech that were about Rihanna and not Drake. He mentioned her achievements in music but ultimately asserted that what was "most impressive" was Rihanna the person.

"She succeeds by doing something that no one in this music industry does, which is being herself," Drake said. "We love the music, which can change styles from album to album, we love the videos, which change their artistic vision from year to year, but most of all, we love the woman, who hasn't changed since day one."

Rihanna was gracious in her acceptance speech. She spoke about how her success is never just about her — it's about Barbados, her family, her fans and "women, black women." She also went on to thank the directors who went along with her "crazy ideas" — her subtle way of asserting what Drake did not: that she is pop music's vanguard, and that the work itself is where her prowess lies. Drake's speech focuses on the product : It was the music that changed styles and the videos that changed artistic vision. The only thing Rihanna did, according to this syntactical choice, was remain the same.

Rihanna performs during the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images hide caption

Rihanna performs during the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.

In her lead essay for the first iteration of Turning the Tables, a list of the 150 greatest albums by women in the pop era, Ann Powers notes that descriptions of greatness are often gendered: "Women are linked to the natural and the timeless, while men innovate and make history. Men build civilizations and create great works, while women animate spaces and connect people with their nurturing souls and alluring energy."

Those who claim to love Rihanna often say it's because of her soul, or her energy. Miranda July wrote about this phenomenon in her 2015 profile of the pop icon , where she describes how various people responded when she asked them about Rihanna: "A lesbian art history professor told me that she's 'the real deal.' Others used the words 'magic' and 'epic.' But when I tried to get anyone to pinpoint things she had said or done — particular interviews or incidents — everyone became lost in inarticulacy." When July told her Uber driver he was taking her to interview Rihanna, he responded, "You kidding? That's my girl," he said. "I love her. She's so down-to-earth."

But after meeting Rihanna, words fail July, too. Her final observation of the star is about her soul: "Souls don't really care about good or bad, right or wrong — they're just true. Everlasting. It makes you sound dumb to talk about this stuff, which is why no one could tell me exactly what it was about Rihanna. But millions of fans don't seem to need it explained to them. A soul just knows a soul."

"My understanding, from the moment she sat down, was that we were in love," July continues. It is a bold presumption of emotional access.

In a 2012 profile for GQ , Jay Bulger says Rihanna comes across as more authentic than her peers: "She sometimes gets grouped with theatrical pop stars like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Nicki Minaj. But those are one-woman masquerade balls, their real selves hidden behind the next costume change. Rihanna, on the other hand, comes off as wild, weird, unfiltered, a little unhinged, which just makes everyone else go all unhinged."

The scholar Esther L. Jones has argued that as Rihanna established more and more narrative authority over her public image, she began to author a woman "simultaneously ordinary and exceptional, intimate and distant, known and inaccessible." Her social media feeds exemplify this: She promotes her wildly successful global fashion brands, but she also loves to post memes . For MTV News, Doreen St. Felix wrote that "a cultivation of lifestyle — her trips back home to Barbados, her tattoos, her laughter, her love of family, her social media presence — in the moment that every other person of her caliber is trying out reclusivity, and the secondary group is trying out diva-hood, makes Rihanna the last rock star."

It matters that Rihanna comes across as genuine, that her sense of self appears unshaken by celebrity , that she feels accessible to her fans. But this, as Jones and St. Felix are getting at, is not a persona that occurs without effort. Rihanna has been performing what it means to be in the thick of things — not above them, not outside looking in, not past them — for her whole career. That takes emotional and intellectual work, especially when you consider — as Jones does in her essay "'What's My Name?': Reading Rihanna's Autobiographical Acts" — that the public-private distinction Rihanna had spent years cultivating was shattered in 2009, when Rihanna's then-boyfriend Chris Brown physically assaulted her just ahead of the Grammys and the photo evidence spread across the Internet.

To really love Rihanna, one must respect that what we so often find lovable about her — her so-called relatability, the way she's able to de-emphasize the significant social and artistic distance between herself and her fans — is also her work.

"We Found Love," released two-and-a-half years after Chris Brown attacked Rihanna, is classic dance pop with an edge. It's meant to sound like joy, but the lyrics are vague enough to account for a whole range of human feeling. In the video, Rihanna chooses darkness. It's about two people who are not good for each other. There are fights that look unhealthy. There are plenty of drugs. It starts with an opening monologue about a relationship gone wrong. "When it's over, and it's gone," the English actress Agyness Deyn reads, "you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back so that you could have the good."

In a New Yorker profile, director Melina Matsoukas says it was completely unintentional that Rihanna's on-screen partner in the video looked eerily like Chris Brown — lightskinned, blonde. But she says the plot took inspiration from "[her] terrible love life and obviously [Rihanna's] terrible love life and every woman's terrible love life."

Matsoukas also told The New Yorker 's Alexis Okeowo that Rihanna was on board: "She was open to taking it there ... and with being honest and showing what life really is."

Rihanna had been taking it there for a while. "Russian Roulette," the lead single from her 2009 album Rated R , is about love with life or death stakes, with a video whose imagery comes a bit too close for comfort to police reports from Chris Brown's physical assault of her. Brown's assault of Rihanna took place in a car. A speeding car appears in the video multiple times; at once point, it hurtles towards a standing Rihanna.

When asked about the demand that she be a role model, Rihanna told Vogue : "That title was put on me when I was just finding my way, making mistakes in front of the world. I didn't think it was fair." The videos for "We Found Love" and "Russian Roulette" are not about looking back on hard moments that you've gotten over. They're about being in the messy present. It's not clear that this is what people are talking about when they call Rihanna "down-to-earth," but this too is evidence of the work of being real — dealing with patriarchy and racism and making art through it.

In the video for "S&M," which Matsoukas also directed, Rihanna wears a dress made of newsprint. She's immobile, bound up in plastic wrap as her body's literally covered in media commentary. "Rihanna's 'enjoyment' of the public flagellation with words and accusations is her attempt to speak back to the larger forces of dominance and power, forces that uphold Chris Brown's assault on her by prolonging it for their own entertainment and profit," writes scholar Donna Aza Weir-Soley in the paper "From 'F Love' to 'He Is the One'?: Rihanna, Chris Brown and the Danger of Traumatic Bonding."

As for Rihanna, she told Spin about the song: "I don't think of it in a sexual way, I'm thinking metaphorically ... People are going to talk about you, you can't stop that. You just have to be that strong person and know who you are so that stuff just bounces off."

On the album Unapologetic , which came out as rumors of Rihanna and Chris Brown's romantic reunion swirled ( they were later confirmed ), critic Jessica Hopper wrote for Pitchfork: "She's quite a distance from the tidy narrative we'd like, the one where she's learned from her pain and is back to doing diva triumph club stomp in the shadow of Beyoncé. Unapologetic rubs our faces in the inconvenient messy truth of Rihanna's life which, even if it were done well, would be hard to celebrate as a success."

But Unapologetic was also home to " Pour It Up ," the song and video in which Rihanna plays both the dancer and the client in a strip club. It's a meditation on financial independence and an assertion of control.

Rihanna's realness is not just about her carefree Instagram posts, or her habit of taking wine to-go . Her realness is popular art that cuts to the hard questions. She stretched the boundaries of genre, of course, but she also demanded that her vast audience grapple with the complexity of her inner life — both when it was empowering and when it was difficult. The worry that often accompanies this kind of bravery is that it won't be legible to your audience — or that you'll be misunderstood.

Last year, Jamila Woods , another artist who thinks a lot about authorial control, told me she was thinking about something Sonia Sanchez said: "I shall become, I shall become a collector of me. And put meat on my soul."

When your ears are always burning, I imagine it must be important to write against the stories you believe others are telling about you. "Sometimes a person looks at me and sees dollars. They see numbers and they see a product," Rihanna told GQ in that same 2012 profile. "I look at me and see art. If I didn't like what I was doing, then I would say I was committing slavery."

My favorite Rihanna moment is the line in "B**** Better Have My Money" where she sings, "Turn up to Rihanna while the whole club f****** wasted." It's an acknowledgement that she has the privilege of living in the sonic landscape she created herself — that she is a collector of herself. That line is delivered in the archetypical "Rihanna voice," which is, as Jayson Greene argued for Pitchfork , the most influential vocal of the past decade in pop.

"Umbrella" was the song that showed me all that a single note, sung on "eh," could contain. Rihanna sings the word "uuhm-buh-rella" like she invented it: unafraid of emphasis, letting each part of the word travel into the next. Her voice is so engaging that on "Live Your Life," which came out a year later in 2008, when she sings "live your life" all on the same D, then hovers around the neighborhood of that D for the majority of the hook, it doesn't feel dumb or boring at all.

Greene wrote of the title lyric in "What's My Name": "Who knows how many dozens of times Rihanna practiced that vocal take until she had distilled all of those competing emotions — pleading and playful, weary and sensual, even a little mocking — into three goddamn syllables, looping perfectly."

Rihanna's 'Birthday Cake': Reasons To Listen

I love Rihanna's voice mostly because I have always heard within it the feeling of mustering, an acknowledgement that being comfortable in our skin is possible with intention and effort. Apparently, she wears a chain with the word "Savage" on her neck, or at least she did for that Vogue interview. "Savage is really about taking complete ownership of how you feel and the choices you make," she says. "Basically making sure everybody knows the ball is in your court."

ANTI is this hard-fought confidence embodied. There's confidence, of course, in the lyrics (see: "Sex With Me" and "Needed Me"). But there's also confidence in the delivery: Rihanna stretches her voice to its breaking point on songs like "Higher" and "Love on the Brain," letting it crack in ways we haven't heard before, or linger in falsetto for longer than we're used to. In moments like this, when she takes the vocal template she designed to uncharted places, Rihanna becomes, according to Greene, "both the vandal and the monument."

The question I asked was about whether Rihanna's audience has ever adequately loved her — whether we've given her the kind of love that respects both what she's created and all the labor that went into creating it. But the answer Rihanna gives, through ANTI , is that Rihanna probably doesn't care about the question to begin with.

Rihanna Launches College Scholarships For Foreign Students

In a promotional video for ANTI , Rihanna is given a crown from a child who we can only assume is that same child on the album cover, a young Rihanna. The whole video leads up to this moment, when Rihanna takes the crown and places it on her head. The moment is a lesson: You can wait — wait for ANTI to get the Grammy it deserved, wait for the world to give the genius of your work its due — or you can crown yourself.

Rihanna   Biography

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, on February 20, 1988. She is a well-known singer, songwriter, model, dancer, actress, fashion designer, entrepreneur, and music producer of Barbadian and American nationality.

Rihanna is the daughter of Monica Braithwaite, a retired public accountant, and Ronald Fenty, a commercial supervisor from both Barbados and Ireland. She has two brothers of his parents and three half-brothers by his father side. She went to Charles F. Broome School, where she attended elementary school, and Combermere School, where she won both the talent contest and the beauty pageant in 2004. As a child, she suffered from severe headaches, associated with the constant arguments her parents maintained due to Ronald Fenty’s addiction to cocaine. However, when Rihanna was 14 years old, they divorced, and the headaches ceased.

Her musical career began when she formed a musical trio with two of her classmates in 2003 . By that time, the American music producer Evan Rogers was vacationing with his wife in Barbados. A friend of Rihanna contacted his wife and told him about her. Convinced by his wife, Evan called the trio to an audition, in which Rihanna prevailed before her two companions with her voice, singing Emotion , of the band Destiny’s Child, and Hero , of the singer Mariah Carey. Evan Rogers then arranged a second audition, but this time without her partners and with the presence of her mother. Pleased with what he heard, he invited Rihanna to record a demo in the United States, which was sent to different record companies.

This model went through several hands, up to rapper Jay-Z, who had just obtained the position of president and CEO of the label Def Jam. Jay-Z was only able to listen to Rihanna singing Pon de Replay to feel enthusiastic, although he had his doubts. So, he called Rihanna for an audition in New York, where he convinced both Jay-Z and L.A. Reid that they wanted her in Def Jam. After signing with the label, Rihanna rejected the other offers she had and went to live with Evan Rogers and his wife in the United States.

In 2005, his song Pon de Replay was in the top five of the summer music charts of fifteen countries, among which we can mention the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100. She even reached the number one spot in the Hot Dance Club Songs. By August of that same year, Rihanna released her first album, Music of the Sun, with which she obtained the gold certification of the Association of the record industry of the United States because it sold more than half million units. Rihanna also sang her album at the pre-gala of the MTV Premios Vido Music Awards that same year.

The following year she released her second album, A Girl Like Me , which was very well received as well, as it was ranked number five of the most listened to songs in the United States and the United Kingdom, and in Canada ranked first. On May 31, 2007, Rihanna releases her third album Good Girl Gone Bad. It was with this that she achieved global recognition because beyond the numerous sales of the album made all over the world, which today totals more than 6 and a half million copies , she took it on a tour with more than 80 presentations both in Europe and in North America. In addition to giving her the nomination of several Grammy Awards in 2008, of which she won the Best Collaboration of Rap/Sung.

By November 2009, released her fourth album, Rated R, with which she began her tour The Last Girl on Earth, which featured 57 shows that started in Europe and ended in Australia. The following year she collaborated with Eminem on the song Love the Way You Lie , which was the best-selling song of 2010 in the United Kingdom. That same year, she released her fifth album, Loud , which contained the single Only Girl (In the World) , with which she won the Best Recording Dance Award at the Grammys. In 2011, she released another successful album, Talk That Talk, and in 2012 she collaborated with Coldplay on Princess of China and with Drake on Take Care.

She was also chosen as the best international artist at the Brit Awards for the second consecutive time and won the MTV Music Award for the best video of 2012, being the first woman to receive it several times. In September, she released her seventh album Unapologetic , and in 2013 she won the Grammy for Best Short Music Video thanks to We Found Love . By 2015, the Recording Industry Association of the United States revealed that the artist had sold more than 100 million copies. In 2016, Rihanna released her eighth album and last so far, Anti .

Beyond her musical career, Rihanna participated in 2006 as an actress in Bring it On All or Nothing , although with terrible criticism. She also produced the Styled to Rock series in 2012. She also participated in This Is the End , 2013; Home, of 2015; and It is known that she will appear in the Bates Motel series. She has acted in commercials for Kodak and Samsung, has launched her own fragrance, Rebelle, and has helped in multiple charity events.

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Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero Biography

Fernando Botero Angulo (April 19, 1932 – September 15, 2023) was a sculptor, painter, muralist, and draftsman, hailing from Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia. He was a Colombian artist known and celebrated for infusing a substantial volume to human and animal figures in his works.

Early Years and Beginnings

Fernando Botero was born into an affluent Paisa family , composed of his parents, David Botero and Flora Angulo, along with his older brother Juan David, who was four years his senior, and his younger brother, Rodrigo, who would be born four years after Fernando, in the same year that their father passed away. In 1938, he enrolled in primary school at the Ateneo Antioqueño and later entered the Bolivariana to continue his high school education. However, he was expelled from the institution due to an article he published in the newspaper El Colombiano about Picasso , as well as his drawings that were considered obscene. As a result, he graduated from high school at the Liceo of the University of Antioquia in 1950.

In parallel to his studies, Fernando attended a bullfighting school in La Macarena at the request of one of his uncles. However, due to an issue related to bullfighting, Botero left the bullring and embarked on a journey into painting. In 1948, he held his first exhibition in Medellín. Two years later, he traveled to Bogotá where he had two more exhibitions and had the opportunity to meet some intellectuals of the time. He then stayed at Isolina García’s boarding house in Tolú, which he paid for by painting a mural. Once again in Bogotá, he won the second prize at the IX National Artists Salon with his oil painting “Facing the Sea” .

“Ephemeral art is a lesser form of expression that cannot be compared to the concept of art conceived with the desire for perpetuity. What many people fail to understand is that Picasso is a traditional artist”- Fernando Botero

Due to the prize from the IX Salon and the sale of several of his works, Fernando Botero traveled to Spain in 1952 to enroll at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. There, he lived by selling drawings and paintings in the vicinity of the Prado Museum. In 1953, he went to Paris with filmmaker Ricardo Irrigarri, and later, they both traveled to Florence. Here, he entered the Academy of San Marco, where he was heavily influenced by Renaissance painters such as Piero della Francesca, Titian, and Paolo Uccello.

Career and Personal Life

In 1955, Botero returned to Colombia to hold an exhibition featuring several of his works created during his time in Europe, but it was met with a lukewarm reception from the public.

Woman With a Mirror / Foto:Luis García (Zaqarbal) / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Spain (CC BY-SA 3.0 ES)

In 1956, he married Gloria Zea, with whom he would later have three children: Fernando, Juan Carlos, and Lina. The couple traveled to Mexico City, where Fernando Botero was eager to see the works of Mexican muralists, but this experience left him disillusioned. Consequently, he began searching for his own artistic style, drawing influence from both the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo and the Colombian artist Alejandro Obregón . In this quest, he started experimenting with volume, initially in still lifes, and gradually extending this approach to other elements.

In 1957, he successfully exhibited in New York, showcasing his new artistic sensibility. The following year, he returned to Bogotá, where he was appointed as a professor at the School of Fine Arts at the National University of Colombia . He presented his work “La Camera Degli Sposi” at the X Colombian Artists Salon , winning the first prize and becoming the country’s most prominent painter. This piece sparked some controversy as it was initially censored for being almost a parody of Andrea Mantegna’s “La Cámara de los Esposos”. However, it was later reinstated in the exhibition on the advice of Marta Traba. Subsequently, Fernando Botero exhibited his works in various spaces in the United States, where a businessman from Chicago purchased “La Camera Degli Sposi” .

“Fernando Botero and his works are the finest ambassadors of our country in this land of navigators and discoverers, of poets and fado singers”- Juan Manuel Santos

In 1960, Botero separated from Gloria Zea and traveled to New York. He led a modest life here as the New York art scene was primarily inclined towards abstract expressionism. Consequently, Botero was influenced by artists like Pollock, which led him to experiment with color, brushwork, and format, to the point of nearly abandoning his distinctive style characterized by the manipulation of volume. Aware of this, Botero returned to his usual style of flat colors and figurative representations.

Starting in 1962, he began a series of exhibitions in both Europe and the United States, as well as in Colombia. By 1970, the year his son Pedro was born to his second wife, Cecilia Zambrano, Fernando Botero had already become the world’s most sought-after sculptor. However, in 1974, his son Pedro tragically died in a traffic accident, leading to his second divorce and leaving significant marks on his artistic endeavors.

In 1978, the Colombian painter married Sophia Vari , a renowned Greek artist with whom he shared a significant part of his life, until sadly, she passed away in May 2023.

Since 1983, Fernando Botero has been exhibiting his works and donating them to various cities around the world. As a result, we can find his pieces in the streets of Medellín, Barcelona, Oviedo, Singapore, and Madrid, among others. In 2008, the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in Mexico conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate.

Renowned Colombian artist, Fernando Botero, died on September 15, 2023 , in Monaco at the age of 91 due to pneumonia . His artistic legacy will endure forever. In his hometown, seven days of mourning were declared.

Pedrito a Caballo, Fernando Botero (1975).

Top 10 Famous works by Fernando Botero

Some of the most recognized works by Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero:

• “Pedrito on Horseback” / “Pedrito a Caballo” (1974): This is an oil painting on canvas measuring 194.5 cm x 150.5 cm. For Botero, this work is his masterpiece and a refuge during a personal tragedy. The child depicted is Pedro, his son from his second marriage, who tragically passed away in an accident when he was young.
• “Mona Lisa at 12 Years Old” / “Mona lisa a los 12 años” (1978): This piece stands out as a unique version of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting, the Mona Lisa . Painted in oil on canvas and measuring 183 cm x 166 cm, Botero incorporates his characteristic style of voluptuous and rounded figures into this work, which has become one of his most distinctive pieces.
• “Woman’s Torso” / “Torso de Mujer” (1986): It is a majestic bronze sculpture that rises to an impressive height of approximately 2.48 meters. It is often affectionately referred to as “La Gorda” (“The Fat One”). This artwork finds its home in Parque de Berrío, located in the captivating city of Medellín.
• “Woman with Mirror” / “Mujer con Espejo” (1987): An imposing bronze sculpture weighing 1000 kg. It is located in Plaza de Colón, in the heart of Madrid, Spain. The artwork captivates the gaze with the portrayal of a woman peacefully lying face down on the ground, holding a mirror in her hands. Her expression reflects deep introspection and enigmatic melancholy.
• “The Orchestra” / “La Orquesta” (1991): In this oil on canvas artwork, measuring 200 cm x 172 cm, Botero presents a band of musicians with a singer, all immersed in a spirit of celebration. The artist aims to convey a sense of harmony and joy through his portrayal.
• “Woman Smoking” / “Mujer Fumando” (1994): It is a creation executed in watercolor, spanning dimensions of 122 cm x 99 cm. In this work, Maestro Botero skillfully captures the essence of a woman elegantly holding a cigarette between her fingers. His meticulous focus on voluptuous forms, posture, and the serene expression of the figure masterfully combine to emphasize the sensuality and profound intimacy of the moment captured in the artwork.
• “Man on Horseback” / “Hombre a Caballo” (1996): This bronze sculpture is one of the most iconic works in the artist’s career. It depicts a rider in a majestic and proud posture. Over the years, this imposing work has been exhibited in multiple cities around the world, solidifying its place as a prominent piece in the sculptor’s body of work.
• “The Horse” / “El Caballo” (1997): This iconic sculpture showcases a horse of majestic presence and a distinctive rounded form, sculpted in bronze and measuring approximately 3 meters in height. This masterpiece reflects Botero’s profound passion for horses while also serving as a powerful representation of the mythical Trojan Horse.
• “The Death of Pablo Escobar” / “La muerte de Pablo Escobar” (1999): This artwork, created using the oil on canvas technique, has dimensions of 58 cm x 38 cm. While not considered a masterpiece, this artistic piece represents one of the most significant moments in Colombia’s history. Fernando Botero captures, in his distinctive style, the moment of the death of the drug lord Pablo Escobar , addressing issues related to violence and criminality that have marked the country’s history. An interesting detail is that, although Pablo Escobar admired Fernando Botero’s art, it cannot be said that the admiration was mutual. The painter created two works depicting the death of the drug trafficker.
• “Boterosutra Series” / “Serie Boterosutra” (2011): This work by Botero is part of an erotic art collection called Boterosutra , marking a milestone in the history of Colombian art as the first artistic representation of sexual intimacy between lovers. This series comprises around 70 small-sized pieces created using various techniques, including colored drawings, watercolors, brushstrokes, and also black and white, all of which constitute one of the most contemporary works by the painter.

Ryan Reynolds

Biography of Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Rodney Reynolds was born on October 23, 1976 in Vancouver, Canada, and he is a well-known actor. When Ryan was born, his mother, Tammy, was a student and a salesperson, while his father, Jim, worked in wholesale food sales and also excelled as a semi-professional boxer. In addition, Ryan has three older siblings.

He studied in his hometown of Vancouver until 1994 when he decided to join a theater group as an extracurricular activity while attending Kwantlen College. However, his passion for acting became a vocation, and Ryan dropped out of college to devote all his time and energy to his acting career.

Debut as an actor

He quickly landed small roles in successful and memorable TV series such as “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and “The X-Files”. In 1998, his big break came with the series “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place”, which ran until 2001 and catapulted him to fame. The show became very popular thanks to its great comedic content, an area where Reynolds demonstrated perfect skill, but this was not the first time that Ryan had made a name for himself in a Hollywood comedy, as he had already been in “Life During Wartime” in 1997.

After working in several minor jobs, Ryan got his first major role as a protagonist in the crazy “Van Wilder – Animal Party”, where he played a college party organizer. The success of the film opened doors for him to work alongside Michael Douglas in “Till Death Do Us Part”, support Wesley Snipes in “Blade Trinity” or star in the horror movie “The Amityville Horror”. However, at this stage of his career, Ryan stood out mainly as a protagonist in comedies such as “Just Friends”, “Waiting” and “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”. This led him to want to leave his comedic side behind, getting involved in different projects such as the thriller “Smokin’ Aces”, the independent film “Adventureland” and the action film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”. Later on, he also participated in romantic films such as “The Proposal” and “Definitely, Maybe”. However, recognition of his acting ability did not come until Ryan was nominated for a Goya Award for his demanding role in “Buried”. It is worth noting that he also brought to life the comic book hero “Green Lantern” and the renowned “Deadpool”.

Contracts, curiosities

Prestigious brands like Hugo Boss have not been oblivious to Ryan Reynolds’ popularity, charisma, and good looks, offering him contracts to be the face of one of their fragrances : Boss Bottled Night, a fragrance that, through great advertising, managed to convey an irresistible seductive effect.

Two curiosities can be highlighted from his work: first, the nearly 10 kilos of solid muscle he gained thanks to rigorous physical training to bring Hannibal King to life in “Blade: Trinity”; and second, his appearance on the animated TV series Zeroman, in which he lent his voice to the character Ty Cheese. In addition, like many Hollywood stars, Ryan Reynolds has an eccentricity outside the world of entertainment: a great passion for motorcycles , of which he owns three collector’s items, one of which was designed exclusively for him and is none other than a Harley Davidson.

Romantic relationships

Regarding his personal life, Ryan Reynolds was in a romantic relationship with singer Alanis Morissette from 2002 to 2007. The couple got engaged in 2004, but in July 2006, People magazine reported that they had separated, although neither of them officially confirmed the news. Shortly after, in February 2007, they decided to end their engagement by mutual agreement. In May 2008, Reynolds announced his engagement to actress Scarlett Johansson , and they got married on September 27 of the same year. However, in December 2010, the couple announced in a statement to People magazine that they had decided to end their marriage.

So, on September 9, 2012, he married the actress Blake Lively in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. In October 2014, they announced that they were expecting their first child, and in December of that same year, Ryan Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively became parents with the birth of their daughter: Ines. Later, on April 14, 2016, his wife’s second pregnancy was confirmed, and on September 30, 2016, he became a father for the second time to a boy named James.

Biography of Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, born July 9, 1956 in Concord, California, United States, is an actor known as Tom Hanks. Hanks was raised by his father Amos Mefford Hanks, who worked as a cook of English food, and his mother Janet Marylyn, a nurse. He was raised with the values of the Catholic and Mormon religion. During his time at Skyline High School in Oakland, he attended theater classes with his best friend. During his adolescence, Hanks demonstrated his acting talent and won the Best Theater Actor award at his institute. Later, he enrolled in Chabot College in Hayward, California and two years later did a exchange at California State University, Sacramento.

1981 – Debut as an actor

In 1979, the Hanks family moved to New York, which gave Tom the opportunity to debut as a supporting actor in the horror film “Sabe que estás sola” in 1981. Two years later, he landed a lead role in another film. Additionally, he did his first television work in the comedy series “Bosom Buddies.” Later, he decided to move to Los Angeles to participate in “Despedida de soltero” in 1984, although the film was not very successful, it allowed him to be discovered by Ron Howard, who later contacted him to offer a role in “Splash” in 1984.

Since then, Tom starred in several comedy films such as “Amigos del alma” (1980), “Esta casa es una ruina” (1986), “Big” (1988), “No matarás… al vecino” (1989), “Socios y sabuesos” (1989), and “Joe contra el volcán” (1990). His father was always very important in his career, constantly encouraging him to keep fighting for his dream. On several occasions, he helped him to get small roles. He also supported his participation in the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. Tom had already made some appearances in series like “Vacaciones en el mar”, “Happy Days”, “Taxi”, or “Family Ties”.

“The King of Comedy”

After a small role in the horror film “He Knows You’re Alone” (1980) directed by Armand Mastroianni, he starred in several comedies that typecast him in comedic roles. His charming personality and natural talent contributed to his growing popularity. Definitely his consecration came in the eighties, he was cataloged as the king of comedy . Thanks to “Big” (1988), he achieved great success for his performance, receiving the Los Angeles Critics Award and an Oscar nomination . Although he had a bit of a downfall after that, he regained momentum as a disillusioned former baseball pitcher who trains a women’s team in “A League of Their Own” (1992).

Tom considered it appropriate to change direction and tackle other stories, to move away from comedy a little. So, he eagerly sought more intense themes where he could showcase his versatility. With his work in “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (1989), directed by Brian de Palma, he attempted to take the first step to break away from light comedies, but the result was not as expected. However, his career took off again with his portrayal of an AIDS-stricken lawyer in “Philadelphia” (1992), directed by Jonathan Demme, an intense character that was quite a challenge. His effort was rewarded with an Oscar. He renewed his commercial success with “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993), directed by Nora Ephron, where he teamed up with Meg Ryan, and worked with her again in “You’ve Got Mail” (1998).

Some of his most acclaimed performances

In the mid-90s, Hanks established himself as one of Hollywood’s brightest stars. It’s worth mentioning that his career enjoyed significant success. For his role in Robert Zemeckis’ “ Forrest Gump ” (1994), this has been one of the most striking films of the decade, he was again deserving of an Oscar , a prize that increased, turning him into one of the best-paid actors in Hollywood. With the comedy “The Wonders” (1996), he made his directorial debut.

Later, he did the same in the field of production with the TV series “From the Earth to the Moon,” a work that took him several years. Hanks had the lead role in the feature film “Saving Private Ryan” (1997), directed by Steven Spielberg , with this role he was nominated for the Academy Award, although the film received five Oscars. In 2000, he worked with Robert Zemeckis again in the film “Cast Away,” a film in which his solo performance was praised, for which he received an Oscar nomination.

Between 2003 and 2004, he repeated his collaboration with Spielberg in “Catch Me If You Can” and also in “The Terminal.” In 2006, he starred in the hit film “The Da Vinci Code,” the cinematic version of Dan Brown’s controversial work. Starting in 2014, Hanks’ films have grossed over 4.2 billion in countries such as the United States and Canada, and over 8.4 billion in the rest of the world, he is definitely an actor who ensures great success for films. His fame is such that the asteroid (12818) Tomhanks bears his name.

Marriages, children.

The actor has had several marriages throughout his life. His first marriage was to Samantha Lewes in 1978, from which two children were born: Colin Hanks in 1977 and Elisabeth Ann in 1982. However, the couple divorced in 1985. Later, in 1988, he married actress and producer Rita Wilson , with whom he had two additional children: Chester Marlon in 1991 and Truman Theodore in 1996. In recent years, the actor has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which requires a strict diet and daily care to maintain his health.

Marc Anthony

Biography of Marc Anthony

Marc Anthony (born September 16, 1968) is an American salsa singer and actor , born in New York. His real name is Marco Antonio Muñiz Rivera . From a young age, he has been involved in music, growing up with rock and rhythm & blues. His parents, Felipe Muñiz and Guillermina Rivera, discovered his passion and musical ability when he was a child. During his teenage years, to earn money, he began singing at bars and nightclubs , and quickly gained popularity. He was contacted by one of the members of the Latin Rascals group, and their producer Louie Vega invited him to record several albums with the Atlantic Records label.

Beginnings as a singer

One of Marc Anthony’s most successful musical products was the album “Rebel”, which achieved some success on the disco music charts. In 1992, his career in the salsa world took off when the famous Tito Puente took him as an opening act for a concert at Madison Square Garden. A year later, he recorded a salsa version of a song by Juan Gabriel that received excellent reviews and great popularity in the musical circles of New York. Soon, Marc Anthony appeared in several television productions and began to receive offers for concerts. After a few years, he was recognized as the new “king of salsa”. During the 1990s, his lyrics occupied the top position in Latin America and also in the United States.

The new “musical phenomenon”

Marc Anthony became a massively successful musical phenomenon , comparable to the success of Héctor Lavoe. At the same time, he continued to develop his acting career, appearing in films such as “Bringing out the Dead” directed by Martin Scorsese; “Big Night” directed by Stanley Tucci; “Hackers,” and “The Capeman,” a Broadway musical directed by singer and songwriter Paul Simon. He also performed the main theme of the soundtrack of “The Mask of Zorro” (1998), in which Antonio Banderas was the lead actor.

Third salsa album “Against the Stream”

That same year, he worked on the production of his third salsa album: “Contra la Corriente,” undoubtedly many salsa critics and aficionados affirm that it was the best album of his career, for which he received a Grammy for Best Latin-Tropical Album. In 1999, he released the album “Marc Anthony” to the market, this album undoubtedly demonstrates a new stage in his musical career, as it combined salsa with pop and also featured songs in English, in order to reach and conquer the Anglo-Saxon audience and market.

The first single, “I Need to Know,” put him in the top positions of the North American charts: it remained in the Top 10 of the Billboard for eleven weeks and eight more weeks in the Top 40. He also released the Spanish version, titled “Dímelo.” With this song, he won the Grammy for Best Latin Song of the Year and was number one on the Latin Billboard chart. He quickly released the second single, “You Sang to Me,” repeating the success of the previous one and selling over two million copies of the album.

Starting the new millennium, he released a greatest hits salsa album titled “Desde el principio.” After that, Marc Anthony went on a extensive tour that took him through the United States. All magazines and press talked about his triumphant concert at Madison Square Garden. Then he was in Canada and Central America. At that time, Marc Anthony received the admiration of his fans when he helped with his charitable work for the victims of Hurricane George, in sum, he founded a foundation that bears his name.

International tours

In 2011, he started the Dos Mundos Tour, with the company of Alejandro Fernández , a concert across Latin America. The following year, he was in Colombia at the Manacacías Summer Festival, many people from different parts of the country traveled to attend his concert. He had a significant participation in the 53rd International Song Festival of Viña del Mar, Chile, where he sang the song “¿Y cómo es él?” from his album “Iconos”. He received the highest distinction.

On March 3, 2012, Marc returned to Uruguay after 17 years and gave his performance at the Charrúa Stadium in Montevideo with an attendance of 25,000 spectators. In the GIGANT3S TOUR, he performed in several North American cities alongside Chayanne and Marco Antonio Solís . In 2013, he released his album 3.0. In 2014, he was the big winner of four of the five awards for which he was nominated at the Premios Lo Nuestro. Additionally, his career was recognized as one of the most successful Latin music artists. In 2016, he released a song called “Deja que te bese” with the collaboration of Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz, the song has over 50 million views on Youtube.

In September 2016, he carried out his “Marc Anthony Live” tour which included 5 dates at Radio City Music Hall. His private life has been somewhat controversial and has been exposed to various comments. He had his first daughter in 1994, Arianna Rosado-Muñiz, a product of his relationship with a former police officer from New York. In 2000 he married for the first time to Dayanara Torres, with whom he had two children. He later helped Jennifer Lopez in the production of the song “Sway” for the soundtrack of the movie Shall We Dance?. They then fell in love and after only one month of relationship, they got engaged in March 2004.

The couple had twins and Jennifer sold the exclusive photos of the children to People Magazine. However, after a few years, the couple decided to end their marriage on April 9, 2012. It is said that everything started when Jennifer Lopez met dancer Casper Smart and began a relationship with him two months after her separation from Marc. Later, Marc started a relationship with Venezuelan model Shannon de Lima, whom he married in 2014. Despite this, his relationship with Jennifer, the mother of his children, is harmonious, and he even participated in her song “Olvídame y pega la vuelta” in 2016. Two years earlier, the Puerto Rican singer made an impact with the hit song “Flor Pálida”.

On January 28, 2023, he married Nadia Ferreira in an incredible wedding surrounded by stars from film, music, and sports. The ceremony took place at the Perez Art Museum in Miami, with David Beckham as the best man.

  Ver esta publicación en Instagram   Una publicación compartida por Nadia Ferreira (@nadiatferreira)

Paul McCartney

Biography of Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney (born June 18, 1942) is a singer. He was born in Liverpool, England. His mother, Mary Patricia, was a nurse, while his father, James McCartney, was a volunteer firefighter. During Paul’s birth, his father was not present as he was fighting in the Battle of England during World War II. Paul grew up in a religious and strict environment, with his mother Catholic and his father Protestant, but later became agnostic. After returning from the war, his father devoted himself to selling cleaning products and, in his free time, played in bars.

Death of his mother

That’s why his son developed a deep love for music. He stood out in school for his intelligence and discipline and studied at Liverpool Institute secondary school, a good free secondary school. In 1954, he met George Harrison, with whom he quickly formed a strong friendship. At the time, McCartney’s mother was the one who kept the household and for work reasons they moved to Allerton, where they lived until 1964. On October 31, 1956, when McCartney was 14 years old, his mother died from a stroke.

After his mother’s death, McCartney was devastated. It took some time for him to return to normal. H is father saw music as a refuge to help his son feel better, so he took him to listen to the Jim Mac’s Jazz Band, where his father played trumpet or piano. He also gave him a trumpet, but when rock and roll became popular, he chose an acoustic guitar. The first song he composed was “I Lost My Little Girl” on that guitar, a Zenith. He also composed “When I’m Sixty-Four” on the home piano.

1957 – Met John Lennon

He met Lennon on July 6th, 1957. McCartney joined The Quarrymen, a school band led by Lennon, in 1958 as the lead guitarist. The band mixed rock and roll and skiffle, a popular music style, with jazz and blues. After several name changes, the band decided to call themselves The Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best for their move to Hamburg. In 1961, one of its members, Sutcliffe, left the band and McCartney was forced to take over as bassist. They recorded as a backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single My Bonnie.

1963 – “Beatlemania”

They managed to attract the attention of Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962 and a key figure in their later success. With their first hit, “Love Me Do” in 1963, the “Beatlemania” began. John Lennon and Paul wrote a large number of songs together, but later their egos collided and they preferred to write separately. In 1970, The Beatles disbanded. But Paul continued his successful career with songs that reached number one. He recorded his first solo LP, “McCartney”, with songs very different from those that Lennon would write, with commercial melodies for varied tastes.

1980 – Paul McCartney Guinness Records

In 1980, he entered the Guinness Book of Records as the highest-selling songwriter in the world. His theme Yesterday , one of the most celebrated by The Beatles , has around 2,500 versions in the most diverse musical styles. Some of his solo hits are: Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, Live and Let Die for the James Bond film received the Oscar for best musical theme; Coming Up from his solo album Paul McCartney II. He joined George Martin and Ringo Starr in 1982 for the recording of Tug of War. On Press to play, his next album, was recorded with Eric Stewart.

Awards, arrest, record.

Winner of 18 Grammy Awards, including two Lifetime Achievement Grammy Awards (one with the Beatles and another as a solo artist). He is a vegetarian and an animal rights advocate. He was arrested for marijuana possession in Tokyo in 1980 and was briefly in jail. He participated in the “Live Aid” concert against hunger in Ethiopia in 1985. I n 1990, he achieved the record for the largest attendance at a concert with 184,000 people in Rio de Janeiro. Since 1997 he is Sir Paul McCartney, invested as a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.

2013 – Other awards, marriages.

On February 10, 2013, he received a Grammy for “Best Traditional Pop Album” for his album “Kisses On The Bottom”. Later, he received a special award from PRS for Music in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the composition of his most famous song, “ Yesterday “. These songs, as well as “And I Love Her,” “You Will Not See Me,” and “I’m Looking Through You,” were written inspired by his relationship with British actress Jane Asher. After five years of engagement, the couple broke up due to his infidelity with Francie Schwartz. He married Linda Eastman on March 12, 1969, and together they formed the musical group Wings after the dissolution of the Beatles . In 1999, he presented his collection of poems entitled “Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics (1965-1999)”. After the death of his wife, McCartney experienced deep sadness.

In 2002, Paul McCartney married former model Heather Mills in an Irish castle. After a long legal battle in the London Supreme Court, in 2008 Mills was authorized to collect one fifth of the 250 million dollars she had demanded from McCartney for their four-year marriage. In 2011, McCartney married Nancy Shevell in a civil ceremony in London on October 9th of that year.

Relevant aspects of his life and musical career

• With 60 gold records and the sale of over 100 million albums and singles as a solo artist and with The Beatles, McCartney is recognized as one of the most successful composers and artists of all time.
• As a solo artist in 1999 and as a member of The Beatles in 1988, he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.
• As a solo artist and with The Beatles, he has been recognized with twenty-one Grammy Awards.
• 32 of the songs that McCartney has written or co-written have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
• As of 2014, he had sold over 15 million certified units by the RIAA in the United States.
• In 1997, McCartney was elevated to the rank of knight for his services to music.
• In 1965, McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr were named members of the Order of the British Empire .
• He has been married three times and is the father of five children.
• He has participated in projects to help international charities related to issues such as animal rights, seal hunting, landmine cleaning, vegetarianism, poverty and musical education.
• He ranks 11th on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Singers.
• He ranks first on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists as a member of The Beatles.
• He ranks third on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Bassists.
• Only surpassed by Bob Dylan , he ranks second on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Songwriters.

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Welcome to Rihanna's Revolution

At 32, Robyn Rihanna Fenty is already an icon. But the secret to her success in the beauty business might lie in how she has reimagined what it means to be one.

Meeting a megastar for the first time can be nerve-racking. You never really know what to expect. So, naturally, even as I looked out over the calming Hudson River from the rooftop of a Manhattan photo studio, I was a little antsy. Then the elevator rang, the door opened, and out walked Rihanna.

It was 2007. I was an assistant beauty editor at the time. Rihanna was fresh off the release of her wildly successful third album, Good Girl Gone Bad . She was one of the hottest artists in the world. So I watched intently as she casually strolled in as if she’d just hopped off the A train, rocking an oversize hoodie, jeans, and a skully, with two of her girls from Barbados in tow.

She shook hands with our production staff, greeting each person with a smile. When she turned to me, I sat my notepad down, expecting a handshake. To my surprise, she walked right up and gave me a hug. “Hey, I’m Robyn,” she said.

Instantly I knew what kind of person Rihanna was. Underneath the veil of this superhero-ish, ultramagnetic, über-swaggy star, Robyn Rihanna Fenty was a real one—not fake real, but real real: a Black girl who wasn’t so caught up in her own celebrity that she couldn’t recognize another Black girl on the come up. Sure, it was just a hug. But the gesture was bigger than that. Rihanna gave off the type of down-to-earth vibe you’d expect from a homegirl you’ve known since middle school.

Despite her fame, Rihanna has somehow always managed to stay down—for the cause, for her people. It has always felt like she is one of us.

Rihanna’s position as a global celebrity with more than 85 million Instagram followers has certainly helped her forge inroads where others have met roadblocks. But she has never shied away from using that platform to speak truth to power.

In 2018, Rihanna turned down an invitation to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show to stand in solidarity with free-agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was effectively sidelined from the league after taking a knee during the national anthem to protest systemic racism and police brutality. In her acceptance speech at this year’s NAACP Image Awards, she called for friends and allies of the Black community to “pull up,” to be part of the movement and stand on the side of justice. This spring, as the Covid-19 pandemic devastated communities—and, in particular, Black communities—across the United States, her Clara Lionel Foundation, the nonprofit she founded in 2012 and named after her late grandmother Clara Braithwaite, and her 91-year-old grandfather, Lionel Braithwaite, and its partners committed more than $36 million to emergency response efforts. And Rihanna was one of the first celebrities to speak out about the brutal killing of George Floyd: “If intentional MURDER is the fit consequence for ‘drugs’ or ‘resisting arrest’... then what’s the fit consequence for MURDER???!” she wrote on Instagram.

Fast-forward 13 years from our first meeting, and in addition to the blockbuster albums and world tours, Rihanna has built a behemoth of a fashion and beauty empire, which includes a makeup line, Fenty Beauty; a Paris-based fashion house that she created in partnership with luxury conglomerate LVMH, Fenty; an inclusive intimates collection, Savage X Fenty; and the highly anticipated new skin-care line she dropped in July, Fenty Skin.

Successfully pivoting from one industry to another is a feat very few people have been able to pull off—let alone Black women. Think about it: Other than Oprah, how many Black women have managed to take multiple industries by storm? The list is very short, and Rihanna’s name is unquestionably near the top—an achievement made more remarkable by the way she has done it. Rihanna’s swag bleeds through every product, campaign image, Instagram caption, and shade name (Cuz I’m Black).

That’s why I wasn’t the least bit surprised by how quickly Fenty Beauty exploded after its launch in 2017. According toForbes, the brand raked in a reported $100 million in sales in its first six weeks, reaching more than $550 million in its first full year alone.

By developing a truly inclusive makeup collection, Rihanna provoked change in an industry that had historically—and almost exclusively—catered to white women. Fenty Beauty launched with 40 shades of foundation, more than double the number offered by many other leading brands at the time. (It inspired what has come to be known as the Fenty Effect: Forty shades is now considered the benchmark for foundation ranges.)

But Rihanna’s approach to Fenty Beauty resonated with people in a deeper way. Beyond providing people in communities of color starved for accessible foundation that actually matched their complexions, the move seemed to communicate, I see you when no one else does.

“Rihanna’s unapologetic determination to make beauty an inclusive industry—and her insistence that beauty be democratic—changed the game,” says actress Tracee Ellis Ross, who last year launched her own beauty brand, Pattern, with a range of products and tools designed for natural hair. “She seems to imagine from a world where there are no limits, inviting us all to do the same.”

With Fenty Skin, Rihanna is looking to bring that same sensibility to skin care. More than two years of development went into the line, which led to a tightly curated collection of three multitasking two-in-one products: makeup remover/cleanser, serum/toner, and an SPF moisturizer. “I’ve always seen the Fenty brand as more than just makeup, and I knew I wanted to make skin care from the very beginning,” Rihanna says. “It was just about getting it right. You have to live with the formulas for awhile and test them in different ways. It’s very different from makeup in that sense. It takes a long time.”

Rihanna has never abided by limitations. But her outward success in the beauty space is a testament to something far more inward that is less about how her fans have embraced her and more about how she has embraced them.

Back when we first spoke in 2007, while munching on fried rice from a local restaurant, Rihanna shared a story about her mom, who had worked at a makeup store similar to Sephora. “She knew everything about perfume, skin care, and makeup,” Rihanna told me. “She never let me wear makeup, but I was secretly fascinated. So when she’d leave home, I would play around with hers.”

Rihanna understood early on that beauty is about much more than appearances: It’s about discovery, identity, and how you feel as much as how you look. Her impact on the beauty world is a microcosm of a shift in the world itself—a world that is now finally expanding beyond the prototypical tall, thin blonde to include the full-figured, dark-complexioned, and natural in its notions of strength, success, and, yes, beauty. Rihanna has opened doors for women of all races, sizes, orientations, and creeds to be both seen and heard, which is not just a concept she has grasped and capitalized on but a reality she has lived. Like the hug from one Black girl to another, you can’t fake that. Not with all the foundation or concealer in the world.

Art director: Oliver Shaw; Executive Producer: Shelby Beamon; Entertainment Booker: Christopher Bartley; Hair: Ursula Stephen; Makeup: Priscilla Ono, Fenty Beauty Global Makeup Artist; Manicure: Kimmie Kyees; Local Producer: Gabe Hill for GE Projects; Digital Technician: Dale Gold; Set Designer: Spencer Vrooman; Tailor: Jim Tanner; Production Assistant: Sasha Bar-Tur; Photo Assistant: Jared Zagha; Printing:Arc Lab Ltd. Special thanks to Ron Hartleben and Jahleel Weaver.

This article originally appears in the September 2020 issue of Harper's BAZAAR, available on newsstands September 8.

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Rihanna, a national hero in Barbados, and a superstar worldwide

When pop star Rihanna was declared a national hero in Barbados, the country that bears her roots, the crowd in her hometown of Bridgetown cheered.

Key points:

• Robyn Rihanna Fenty, known professionally as Rihanna, has been declared a national hero in Barbados
• Rihanna was born and raised on the Caribbean Island, but is an international superstar
• The singer and entrepreneur accepted the honour at a ceremony held to mark the birth of the new republic

Rihanna too was very much grateful for the honour.

"Nothing, nothing compares to being recognised in the soil that you grew in," the 33-year-old said.

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty, the singer was conferred the honour by Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley.

"May you continue to shine like a diamond and bring honour to your nation by your words, by your actions, and to do credit wherever you shall go," the PM said referencing her hit song Diamonds.

"God bless you, my dear."

The Caribbean Island has made the historic move to become a republic , removing Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state, and inaugurating President Sandra Mason in that role.

But the "new Queen" of Barbados is arguably Rihanna, who expressed surprise when crowned a national hero.

"This is a day that I will never, ever forget. It's also a day that I never saw coming."

The singer said the people of Barbados are the true heroes, and she takes pride in calling Barbados home.

"I'm going to be a Bajan till the day I die, and this is still the only place I've ever called home. I love Barbados.

"I love you guys and I pray that the youth continue to push Barbados forward."

Rihanna, the global superstar

Rihanna became a worldwide star when her distinctive voice hit airwaves across the world, after she was signed to rapper Jay-Z's record label.

Pon de Replay was the song that propelled her into international stardom in 2005.

She won a Grammy a couple of years later for the single Umbrella featuring Jay-Z, with her 2007 album Good Girl Gone Bad selling several million copies worldwide. She's since won multiple Grammys.

Rihanna is also an entrepreneur. Her Beauty line Fenty has been described by Essence magazine as "a love song to women of colour", in the way it's inclusive of shades that "all women of colour can find themselves in."

Forbes announced her billionaire status earlier this year, saying she's "the wealthiest female musician in the world".

Her album Rated R contained lyrics that touched on revenge, and was released after fellow star Chris Brown was convicted of a 2009 assault against her when the two were dating.

Rihanna has always repped Barbados

Rihanna was born in St Michael parish, Barbados to a Barbadian father and a Guyanese mother in February 1988.

She grew up in Barbados, and won a high school talent show there with a rendition of Hero by Mariah Carey.

A fan of reggae, hip hop and R'n'B, Rihanna was in a girl group, before attracting the attention of an American record producer, who helped shop her demo to Jay-Z.

She's now a bonafide superstar, a billionaire, and a National Hero.

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• Music (Arts and Entertainment)

Rihanna (I)

• Music Artist

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 963

• Contact info
• 96 wins & 327 nominations total

• Petty Officer Cora 'Weps' Raikes

• Gratuity 'Tip' Tucci (voice)

• Smurfette (voice)
• Pre-production

• Marion Crane

• Composer (as Robyn Fenty)
• Composer (music by)

• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Apple Music
• Robyn Rihanna Fenty
• 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
• February 20 , 1988
• Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados
• Children RZA Athelston Mayers
• Parents Monica Braithwaite
• Relatives Reginald Leslie Forde (Grandparent)
• Other works CD: "A Girl Like Me" (Def Jam)
• 3 Interviews
• 48 Articles
• 21 Pictorials
• 665 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia In the United Kingdom, she became the only female; and the only artist in 52 years to have three top ten songs at once on the "UK Official Chart". She also became the first female artist; in the history of the chart, to have a number one in five consecutive years.
• Quotes I love the high-risk (guys). I don't like cream puff, corny guys. Usually, they are the nice guys, the ones that won't hurt you. They will pull out the chair for you and the whole nine yards. Everything is perfect and boring. I like the risk, I like the edge. That's the thrill for me.
• Trademarks Leather outfits and revealing outfits
• The Caribbean Queen
• The Barbados Babe
• The Bajan Beauty
• The Princess of Pop
• The Princess of R&B
• How old is Rihanna?
• When was Rihanna born?
• Where was Rihanna born?

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"This thick skin has been developing since my first day at school. It didn't happen after fame; I couldn't survive fame if I didn't already have it. So sometimes the toughest thing in life is to be vulnerable."

• Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on Feb. 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados
• Rihanna's first No. 1 hit was 2006's "SOS," which sampled "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell. Her 2006 album, A Girl Like Me , became her first to crack the Top 10, peaking at No. 5. She has since amassed more than 100 million in RIAA gold and platinum certifications, making her the artist with the most singles certifications.
• Rihanna earned her first career GRAMMY for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for 2007 for "Umbrella," featuring Jay Z . She made her GRAMMY stage debut at the 50th GRAMMY Awards in 2008, performing "Umbrella."
• Rihanna was an army cadet during high school, and she reached the rank of corporal.
• Rihanna was among the performers at the 2016 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute to Lionel Richie , performing his hit "Say You Say Me." The annual gala raises funds for MusiCares, which provides services and resources that cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies for music people.
• Rihanna is the founder of the Clara Lionel Foundation, which she founded in 2012 to support health and education projects around the world.

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Rihanna's Life Story: From Island Tomboy to Platinum Pop Sensation

From singing into a hairbrush to selling millions of albums worldwide, Rihanna's story is a mixed bag of strength, luck, and perseverance.

Now thriving as a fashion icon and music idol, she often refers to her childhood struggles as the driving force behind her many ventures. Her life wasn't always about making headlines and performing concerts. On the contrary, Rihanna's story begins on a small island with a drug-addicted father and a producer who didn't think she could sing.

Here is Rihanna's life story:

Growing up in a troubled home.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20th in 1988, in Saint Michael Parish on the island of Barbados. She was the eldest child born to humble parents. Her mother worked as an accountant and her father was a warehouse supervisor.

Rihanna grew up in a small bungalow along with her two younger brothers. Money was always low throughout her childhood. Yet her father would come home drunk having spent half his paycheck on alcohol and crack. His addictions put tremendous strain on the family and his drug-induced tempers would often turn physical. While her mother was the primary target, on one occasion he turned on Rihanna after she asked to stay 10 more minutes at the beach.

When her father lost his job, everything got worse. Food became scarce, the house was littered with drug paraphernalia, and Rihanna would walk in on her father smoking crack. She closed herself off and would barely speak to anyone. It became so stressful that she suffered from intense headaches, which led to countless exams and the belief that she had a tumor.

At school, things weren't much better. Rihanna was a bright student, particularly in math and chemistry, but her grades began to decline. She was constantly bullied over her light complexion - due to her father's Irish descendence. But Rihanna had been toughened by her father's behavior and would settle the tauntings with her fists.

At seven years old, Rihanna found an escape from her life's chaos. She'd turn on the radio and sing into a hairbrush along with her idols Madonna, Mariah Carey, and Janet Jackson. During these short-lived moments of happiness, Rihanna felt like she belonged. She knew in her heart that her future was in music - although it seemed unlikely to happen while on the small island.

A teen with a dream

At 14, her parents divorced and she was finally free from her crippling headaches. But now her mother had to work full-time, meaning Rihanna had to grow up fast. She helped make ends meet by working a cash register and selling clothes in a stall on the street.

Rihanna was now the primary caretaker of her youngest brother, but she also nurtured her love of music. She drew inspiration from reggae legend Bob Marley , who she considered an example to follow for aspiring artists in the Caribbean.

As time passed, Rihanna couldn't shake the feeling that she could become a star if only the right person heard her sing. So she raised her chances by singing at the beach, at social gatherings, and at her high school talent show - which she won after singing Mariah Carey's "Hero".

Although becoming a singing sensation wasn't her only aspiration at the time. Growing up with brothers also gave her the need to prove she was tough. She embraced a tomboy dress sense and became a cadet, rising to the rank of corporal. After years of bullying and witnessing her father's abusive behavior, Rihanna refused to appear vulnerable to anyone - an attitude she upholds to this day.

First big break

At 15, Rihanna formed a musical trio with her classmates. They performed at every possible venue, mostly covering songs by Destiny's Child. One day, Rihanna's friend revealed that her mother was acquainted with the record producer Evan Rogers, who just happened to be on holiday in Barbados with his wife. Rihanna jumped at the opportunity and asked her friend to set up an audition. The trio had no band name or formal training, but she couldn't miss the chance to be heard.

Soon after, the group arrived at Evan Rogers' hotel suite and waited nervously in the lobby. Rihanna fidgeted while deeply regretting her fashion choice of pink capris with a pink shirt. She hoped her makeup looked passable, considering her mother had never allowed her to wear makeup before.

Finally, the three girls were called in. As soon as Rihanna stepped inside, Evan was instantly taken by her Bajan beauty. Her fierce, green eyes and carefully applied makeup graced her with a presence that made him forget the two other girls existed. However, from experience, Evan  suspected "the pretty one" of the group couldn't sing.

He was wrong. The group performed two songs, and it was clear to Evan that Rihanna was meant for music. The audition ended, he thanked the girls and sent them on their way. It was unclear whether he would follow up or not, but Rihanna clung to the hope that he would.

Soon enough, Evan called and requested that Rihanna and her mother fly over to the United States for a demo recording. Rihanna was over the moon, and after a few visits, she gained her mother's permission to move to Connecticut and live with Evan and his wife while she recorded her very first album.

You may never be good enough for everybody, but you will always be the best for somebody.

The debut that topped the charts

Over the next year, 16-year-old Rihanna recorded four tracks, including a bubbly dancehall jam called " Pon de Replay ". The demo was sent out to various labels, one being Def Jam Recordings , where rapper Jay Z  was just appointed as CEO. The rapper was impressed but considered the songs were 'too big' for the girl singing them. Nevertheless, Jay Z asked her to audition for him so he could see for himself.

Rihanna was now 17 and already on her way to audition for her first record label. She had spent the entire night choosing an outfit and was shaking at the thought of singing in front of Jay Z. Although the moment she began to sing Whitney Housten's "For the Love of You", Jay Z was sold. He could tell by the resolute look in her eyes that she was going to be a star - with or without him. So he asked her to sign with his label. They ended up staying until 3 am sifting through all the details of the contract. But Rihanna didn't mind, her life-long dream was officially afoot.

Over the following month, Rihanna happily worked with various producers to complete her debut album. She chose her favorite track "Pon de Replay" as the lead single and in May 2005, it came second on the US Billboard and was among the top five hits worldwide. Rihanna was now on the map and quickly became a recognized name in the music industry.

Only eight months later, Rihanna released her second album A Girl Like Me , which launched two more hits. The track "SOS" became her first number one single and went Platinum. But before the glitz and glam of fame swept Rihanna away, Jay Z gave her a few words of advice which she still follows today,

Don't change who you are, never forget where you came from, and always stay humble.

Relationship with Chris Brown

At only 19 years old, Rihanna was topping the charts and living the dream. She continued to work with Jay Z and released the smash hit "Umbrella", which won Rihanna her very first Grammy Award.

For her next albums, Rihanna assumed creative control and reinvented her music. As someone who quickly grows bored of the same things, she decided it was time to transform her cutesy image into something risque and sexy. Her music videos became more suggestive and controversial, but her fanbase grew along with her worldwide acclaim.

At 21 years old, her fame gained a different kind of attention. Rihanna began dating Chris Brown, a rapper from an equally turbulent childhood. The relationship was rocky, and on the night before her performance at the 51st Grammy Awards, Rihanna found suspicious texts on his phone. She promptly confronted him while they drove home, only to discover he had cheated on her with a former employee. The argument became heated and Chris threw the first punch. Rihanna, a tough woman with military training, fought back. It became a full-on battle inside the car, where she emerged severely cut and bruised - with marks of strangulation around her neck.

The traumatic event ensued in a media firestorm. But just like she did back in her teens, Rihanna put up her guard and refused to show herself as a vulnerable victim. Instead, she chose to use this experience as another step in her success story. Rihanna became a spokesperson and collaborated with artists such as  Eminem and Kanye West in songs about domestic violence.

However, her familiarity with abusive men made it hard for her to leave the relationship completely. After the restraining order was reduced to enable a professional relationship, Rihanna became involved with Chris once again. Although it didn't take long before she finally decided enough was enough and left him for good.

Sure, you wish you did some things differently. But there is no sense in becoming burdened with regret over things you have no power to change.

Business ventures and influencing generations

Despite her young age, Rihanna's dream of getting her music out into the world falls short of her current reality. Within a decade, she has become a best-selling songwriter, singer, and actress. She has sold over 540 million albums worldwide, won countless awards, and is the youngest solo artist to score 14 Billboard music hits. She has appeared in Hollywood blockbusters, named a major cultural influencer, and even has a national holiday under her name in Barbados.

But Rihanna has never been one to settle. She has also established herself as an edgy entrepreneur in the realms of fashion and beauty. Her latest business venture being her new cosmetic company Fenty Beauty , the first makeup line to offer a largely diverse variety of skin shades.

For all the wealth and fame she has gathered since her debut, Rihanna is eager to put her influence to good use. At only 18, she created Believe Foundation to help terminally ill children. From then on, she has funded countless charity ventures for causes ranging from cancer research to medical supplies for disaster victims. Former President Barack Obama has personally praised her work, stating " You've become a powerful force in the fight to give people dignity."

With a headstrong character and a heart of gold, Rihanna is in a league of her own. She maintains a tenacious resolve to live her life on her own terms while helping others and inspiring upcoming generations to do more. Regardless of the bumps along the way, Rihanna is proud to say she always follows her heart, and encourages you to do the same.

When you follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose.

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Rihanna - Biography

The barbadian singer is one of the biggest-selling female artists in history..

Who is Rihanna?

Robyn Rihanna Fenty, better known by her stage name Rihanna , was born in Barbados in 1988. Her childhood was deeply affected by her parents' marital problems and her dad's battle with drug and alcohol addictions, which eventually led to their divorce when she was 14. 

After his recovery, father and daughter grew close again and Rihanna still refers to him as the "coolest person on the planet". As a teenager Rihanna turned to music to escape her home troubles and formed a musical trio with two of her classmates. 

Rihanna's rise to fame

Her big break came in 2003 when friends introduced her and fellow bandmates to record producer Evan Rogers, who was on holiday in Barnados with his wife. When the group auditioned for Evan, he later told Entertainment Weekly that "the minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist." 

Over the course of the next year, Rihanna travelled to Rogers' home in Connecticut to work on her demo album. With the help of songwriter Carl Sturken she made a four-song demo that included "Pon de Replay" which would become her first hit single. Rihanna officially relocated when she was 16.

 "When I left Barbados, I didn't look back," she said. "I wanted to do what I had to do, even if it meant moving to America." Soon after, her demo fell into the hands of recording company Def Jam. She auditioned for them and legendary rapper Jay-Z, who was so impressed he signed her almost immediately. "We made a little Godfather joke," recalls Jay-Z. "We said the only way she could leave was through the window."

Eight months later Rihanna released her debut album, Music of the Sun , which went platinum despite less-than-rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine who deemed it "lacking of ingenuity and rhythm." Her follow-up album, A Girl Like Me , fared better with critics in 2006 and included the hit SOS . Rihanna went through a total transformation from teen pop singer to ultimate superstar with her third album Good Girl Gone Bad . It featured hit single Umbrella that won her her first Grammy Award. She flaunted her sex symbol status in her next four albums, with songs entitled "Hard", "Rude Boy", "S&M" and the like, and frequently topped Sexiest Women Alive lists for her raunchy stage performances and music videos. 

Which awards has Rihanna won? 

Rihanna has been labelled one of the most consistent hit makers in pop music for her chart-topping seven albums and collaborations with legends Jay-Z, Enimen, Kanye West and Calvin Harris. She has won countless awards including Grammys, Brits, MTV awards and World Music Awards among others. 

Rihanna's dating life

Her love life has been somewhat less plain sailing than her music career. Rihanna started dating Chris Brown late 2007 and the couple remained intensely private about their relationship. But just after midnight on February 8, a 911 call was made after a pre-Grammy party that the pair had attended. When the police arrived on the scene, Rihanna was found distressed and hurt. 

It was reported that she had found texts from another girl on his phone and after repeatedly pressing him on the subject, an argument sparked which left Rihanna assaulted, even losing consciousness at one point. After the incident, Rihanna admitted feeling vulnerable. "I put my guard up so hard," she said. "I didn't want people to see me cry or feel bad for me. It was a very vulnerable time in my life, and I refused to let that be the image." 

How many children does she have?

The 'Umbrella' singer, 35, and partner A$AP Rocky welcomed their first child  — a boy whose name remains a mystery — in May 2022, and are awaiting the second soon. 

The award-winning singer confirmed her second pregnancy to the world in 2023 via an internet-breaking performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Rihanna's charity work

She is eager to put her fame and fortune to good use, and is involved in many charity ventures. She created The Believe Foundation in 2006 to help terminally ill children, joined H&M for their Fashion Against AIDS campaign, and was the face of the Gucci UNICEF campaign.

Discover more about Rihanna here . 

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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Rihanna

Is there anyone who seems to have more fun with fame, fashion, and all the assorted trappings of being a celebrity in 2023 than Rihanna ? Between commanding a beauty empire and remaining one of the biggest pop stars on the planet—she’s doing the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend , for goodness sake—you’d be hard-pressed to find a better icon for our age than the Bad Gal herself. But you knew that. Here, 5 things about the star that you probably didn’t know.

1. Her baby shower was rave-themed . Rihanna and her partner A$AP Rocky welcomed their first child last May, and naturally, the pre-party was fit for baby royalty. “No brunch, no blush tones. And no animal-shaped nothing,” Rihanna told Vogue editor Chioma Nnadi in May, explaining: “I mean it’s lit for a lot of people—I’ve even planned a couple of baby showers like that myself—it’s just not right for me. Personally, I want a party. I want everyone to be plastered and crawling out. And it’s got to be co-ed! Don’t put me on no wicker chair somewhere with gifts at my feet where everyone is staring at me.”

2. She signed her first record deal at 16 years old. (Yes, you read that right.) When legendary producer and Def Jam president Jay-Z heard the teenage Rihanna’s demo, he reportedly negotiated until 3 a.m. with the label’s lawyers to get the rights to sign her—and if he hadn’t, would we be able to play Anti on repeat to our heart’s content today?

3. She’s no stranger to the celebrity cameo. Long before Rihanna was a Super Bowl halftime performer (or a mom, for that matter), she appeared as herself in the 2006 film Bring It On: All or Nothing , which starred Hayden Panettiere and Solange Knowles as rival cheerleaders. The winning cheer team in the film even got to perform in a Rihanna music video, which...how do we get that perk?

4. Rih was an army cadet in a sub-military program in her native Barbados. Singer-songwriter Shontelle was her drill sergeant and ordered Rihanna around. “That’s what drill sergeants do. We boss cadets around, we make them do push-ups...especially when they show up on the parade square late,” Shontelle told the BBC in 2009. “We were both in cadets together—it wasn’t compulsory or anything. But picture me and Rihanna in combat boots and fatigues crawling through mud and things like that.”

5. Historically, Rihanna has had a few unorthodox preshow rituals. Things start off normal: “I eat lozenges, steam my voice, do my makeup. I Skype my vocal coach, and we sit there at the makeup table and do warm-ups for about a half hour,” she told Esquire in 2011. Then she starts to have some fun: “My personal assistant-slash-bartender brings me a shot that she dilutes with a little something so it’s not so harsh, like orange juice or soda water and lime,” she said.“I have to have it. I take it very seriously, so there is a level of anxiety, always. I overthink everything when it comes to my job. The drink calms my nerves. I sip it while I watch the opening act from my dressing room. Sometimes I go out into the audience. I put on a really big hoodie and sneak out there.”

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45 Fabulous Facts About Rihanna

Did you know that singer-songwriter Rihanna won her High School beauty pageant when she was 16 years old?

Rihanna is one of the world’s most influential female singer-songwriters of the 21 st century.

Her elaborate live shows and catchy tunes have people of all ages dancing and singing along.

But do you know how it started for Rihanna? Or where she comes from?

Here are 45 fabulous facts about Rihanna that you should know.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is 36 years old. She was born on February 20 , 1988. Her star sign Pieces, meaning she is dreamy and romantic.

Rihanna was born in Saint Michael, Barbados, and grew up in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Her father is Irish-Barbadian, and her mother is Afro-Guyanese. Her parents divorced when she was just 14 years old.

She has two biological brothers, two half-sisters, and a half-brother.

RiRi attended army cadets when she was at school, and her drill sergeant was singer Shontelle.

At age 15, she won a talent show by singing “Hero” by Mariah Carey.

Rihanna grew up listening to reggae music and started to study music at school.

When Rihanna was 16, she won her high school beauty pageant.

In 2003 alongside two classmates, she formed a girl band in Barbados .

American record producer Evan Rogers discovered the trio and invited them for an audition.

Rihanna stood out as being the powerful voice, so she was invited for a second audition.

Rogers invited Rihanna to record some sample tapes, including “Pon de Replay” in his studio in the US.

Rihanna’s sample tapes were sent to Def Jam Records, and it was Jay-Z who listened and signed her.

Rihanna’s debut album “Music of the Sun” was released in August 2005, which reached number 10 on the Billboard 200 list, and over two million copies were sold worldwide.

On Gwen Stefani’s “Harajuku Lover” tour in 2005, Rihanna was her opening act.

In August 2006, she had her first acting role in Bring it On: All or nothing .

Her second album, “A Girl like Me,” was released just a year after her debut in April 2006.

At the Barbados Music Awards in 2006, Rihanna won two awards; Best New Artist and Best Female Artist of the Year.

In 2006 Rihanna created the Believe Foundation, which was designed to help terminally ill children.

Her release of S.O.S in 2006 was her first number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100.

RiRi released her album “Good Girl Gone Bad” in 2007.

Good Girl Gone Bad was her redefining album, which exposed her fierce, strong personality through an R&B-inspired album.

She was ranked number eight on Maxim’s Hot 100 Women list in 2007.

In 2007 Rihanna was given the honorary title of “Ambassador for Culture and Youth” for Barbados.

In 2008 the former president of Barbados created “Rihanna Day,” which is held every February 22 .

Following the 2008 release of her single “Umbrella,” she had to ban umbrellas being brought to her concerts in fear of spectators injuring others.

Rihanna won her first Grammy Award for her hit with Jay-Z, “Umbrella.”

In 2008 Rihanna set up a series of free concerts called “A Girl’s Night Out,” any money earned by sponsors was donated to her charity Believe Foundation.

In September 2009, Rihanna appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue Magazine as part of their “Extreme Couture” edition.

In 2011 her hit “S&M” became her tenth number-one single to get onto the Billboard list.

At age 23, she was the youngest artist to have had ten number ones featured on Billboard.

For two consecutive years, 2011-2012, Rihanna won International Female Solo Artist at the BRIT Awards.

Rihanna has a Maltese poodle cross called Oliver, who she adopted in 2015.

By 2016 Rihanna had headlined six tours and released eight studio albums.

Rihanna launched her lingerie line “Savage X Fenty” in 2018 , which was designed to offer a wide range of lingerie to all skin colors and body sizes.

In 2018 Rihanna purchased a $7 million house in West London, England.

In March 2018, Snapchat issued an apology to Rihanna following an ad campaign in a “would you rather” game, asking users would they rather “slap Rihanna” or “punch Chris Brown.”

Rihanna has had a minimum of six Guinness World Records. On February 25 , 2020, Rihanna received a Guinness World Record for being the most tracked artist on Songkick, with 3,867,117 followers.

In May 2019, Fenty fashion was launched under Louis Vuitton, which made Rihanna the first woman of color to have a luxury fashion brand.

Rihanna is 5′ 7″ tall (1.73 meters).

Rihanna played Marion Crane in Bates Motel , the character was originally portrayed by Janet Leigh in the 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho .

Rihanna has had more than 75,000,000 downloads, making her the best-selling digital download artist of all time.

She has also earned over 30 top-ten songs in the UK and Australia, making her the only artist in the 21 st century to achieve this feat so far.

Across the globe, there are a total of eight wax figures of Rihanna at the Madame Tussauds museums.

Rihanna has 25 known tattoos , she got her first one back in 2006, which was a musical note on her foot.

Rihanna is an idol and inspiration for any woman across the globe.

Her successful career in singing and songwriting has expanded into acting and fashion.

Rihanna has changed lives around the world in a positive way and given hope to many people, especially to those who are part of her charity.

Her songs are catchy, and her styles change with the seasons, and that’s what makes her one of the most successful female artists today.

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• Rihanna Now
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• Rihanna Fandom

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About the author.

Becca Marsh

Becca Marsh is a travel enthusiast and a lover of nature. She is the co-founder of Global Convoy, a travel production company. When she is not filming, she enjoys writing about culture and travel.

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Rihanna facts for kids

Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ree- AN -ə ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, businesswoman, actress, and songwriter. She is widely regarded as one of the most prominent singers of the 21st century. After signing with Def Jam in 2005, Rihanna soon gained recognition with the release of her first two studio albums, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006), both of which were influenced by Caribbean music and peaked within the top ten on the US Billboard 200 chart. Her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), incorporated elements of dance-pop and established her status as a major icon in the music industry. The chart-topping single "Umbrella" earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award and catapulted her to global stardom.

Rihanna continued to mix pop , dance , and R&B genres on her next studio albums, Rated R (2009), Loud (2010), Talk That Talk (2011), and Unapologetic (2012), the last of which became her first Billboard 200 number one. The albums spawned a string of chart-topping singles, including "Rude Boy", "Only Girl (In the World)", "What's My Name?", "S&M", "We Found Love", and "Diamonds". Her eighth album, Anti (2016), showcased a new creative control following her departure from Def Jam. It became her second US number one album and featured the chart-topping single "Work". During her musical career, Rihanna has collaborated with many artists, such as Drake , Eminem , Jay-Z , Kanye West , Ne-Yo , and Shakira .

With sales of over 250 million records worldwide, Rihanna is the second-best-selling female music artist of all time and the highest-certified female artist of all time on the RIAA's Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking. She has achieved 14 number-one singles, 32 top-ten singles in the US, and 31 top-ten entries in the UK. Her accolades include nine Grammy Awards , 13 American Music Awards (including the Icon Award), 12 Billboard Music Awards , five World Music Awards , six Guinness World Records , the NAACP 's President's Award, and an Academy Award nomination. Her acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show performance in 2023 is the most watched in history. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2018. Forbes ranked her among the top ten highest-paid celebrities in 2012 and 2014. As of 2024, she is the wealthiest female musician, with an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion.

Aside from music, Rihanna is known for her involvement in humanitarian causes, entrepreneurial ventures, and the fashion industry. She is the founder of the nonprofit organization Clara Lionel Foundation, cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, and fashion house Fenty under LVMH ; she is the first black woman to head a luxury brand for LVMH. Rihanna has also ventured into acting, appearing in major roles in Battleship (2012), Home (2015), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), and Ocean's 8 (2018). She was appointed as an ambassador of education, tourism, and investment by the Government of Barbados in 2018 and was declared a National Hero of Barbados on the first day of the country's parliamentary republic in 2021, entitling her to the style of "The Right Excellent" for life.

Music career

Music and voice, fenty beauty, acting career, philanthropy, personal life, awards and achievements, discography, selected filmography.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados . She is the daughter of accountant Monica (née Braithwaite) and warehouse supervisor Ronald Fenty. Her mother is an Afro-Guyanese, while her father is a Barbadian of African, Irish, English , and Scottish descent . Rihanna has two brothers, Rorrey and Rajad Fenty, and two half-sisters and a half-brother from her father's side, each born to different mothers from his previous relationships. She grew up in a three-bedroom bungalow in Bridgetown and sold clothes with her father in a stall on the street.

As a child, Rihanna had many CT scans for the excruciating headaches she suffered, recalling, "The doctors even thought it was a tumor, because it was that intense." By the time she was 14, her parents had divorced, and her health began to improve. She grew up listening to reggae music. She attended Charles F. Broome Memorial Primary School and Combermere School, where she studied alongside future international cricketers Chris Jordan and Carlos Brathwaite. As an 11 year-old, Rihanna was an army cadet in a sub-military programme, where the later Barbadian singer-songwriter Shontelle was her drill sergeant. Although she initially wanted to graduate from high school, she chose to pursue a musical career instead.

In 2003, Rihanna formed a musical trio with two of her classmates in her home country of Barbados. Without a name or any material, the girl group auditioned with American record producer Evan Rogers, who commented, "The minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist." Impressed, Rogers scheduled a second meeting with Rihanna's mother present and then invited Rihanna to his hometown in the United States to record some demo tapes that could be sent to record labels. Recordings were intermittent, taking about a year because she was only able to record during school holidays. "Pon de Replay" and "The Last Time" were two tracks recorded for the demo tape, which were eventually included on her debut album Music of the Sun . That same year, Rihanna was signed to Rogers's and Carl Sturken's production company, Syndicated Rhythm Productions.

In May 2005, her debut single, "Pon de Replay", was released under her mononym "Rihanna". It charted successfully worldwide, peaking in the top five in fifteen countries, including at No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart . The song became a club hit in the United States, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs .

Music of the Sun was released in August 2005. It debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and received a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of over 500,000 units. The album sold over 2 million copies worldwide. A second single, "If It's Lovin' that You Want", was not as successful as its predecessor, but reached the top 10 in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. Aside from her work in music, Rihanna made her acting debut in a cameo role in the successful straight-to-DVD film Bring It On: All or Nothing , released in August 2006.

A month after the release of her debut album, Rihanna began working on her second studio album. A Girl like Me was released in April 2006. Rolling Stone felt that "the burning rock guitar" and haunted strings of some of the album's tracks made " A Girl like Me [...] likable." The album was a commercial success, charting in the top 10 in 13 countries. The album reached No. 1 in Canada and No. 5 in the United Kingdom and the United States, where it sold 115,000 copies in its first week. The album became Rihanna's first to be certified Platinum by the RIAA , after selling over 1,000,000 units. Its lead single , "SOS", was an international success, charting in the top five in 11 countries. The song reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in Australia, her first to reach this chart position. "Unfaithful", the album's second single, reached the top 10 in 18 countries, including No. 1 in Canada and Switzerland. Two more singles were released from the album: "We Ride" and "Break It Off".

Rihanna's third album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), incorporated elements of dance-pop . The chart-topping single "Umbrella" earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award and catapulted her to global stardom. During the late 2000s, Rihanna experimented further with pop , dubstep , and rock music, officially shifting her musical style and image away from the Barbados island girl. Throughout 2008, Rihanna performed on the Glow in the Dark Tour alongside Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco , and N.E.R.D.

She continued to mix pop , dance , and R&B genres on her next studio albums, Rated R (2009), Loud (2010), Talk That Talk (2011), and Unapologetic (2012), the latter of which became her first Billboard 200 number one. The albums spawned a string of chart-topping singles, including "Rude Boy", "Only Girl (In the World)", "What's My Name?", "S&M", "We Found Love", "Where Have You Been" and "Diamonds".

In January 2010, Rihanna released her charity cover version of "Redemption Song" for the Hope for Haiti Now campaign. She also recorded the song "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)" together with Jay-Z, Bono and The Edge for the same campaign to alleviate the 2010 Haiti earthquake .

In summer 2010, Rihanna collaborated with rapper Eminem on "Love the Way You Lie", which was a major worldwide success, reaching No. 1 in over 20 countries. Reaching number 2, the song became the biggest-selling song of 2010 in the UK and the first of Rihanna's singles to sell over a million copies in the country. In October 2010, Rihanna switched managers, joining Jay-Z's Roc Nation Management.

Her eighth album, Anti (2016), showcased a new creative control following her departure from Def Jam. It became her second US number one album and featured the chart-topping single "Work". During her musical career, Rihanna has collaborated with many artists, such as Drake , Britney Spears , Eminem , Jay-Z , Kanye West , Adam Levine , Paul McCartney , Ne-Yo , and Shakira .

In February 2013, at the 55th Grammy Awards, Rihanna won her sixth Grammy Award, in the category Best Short Form Music Video for "We Found Love" (2011). Also that month, the United Kingdom's Official Charts Company announced that Rihanna had sold 3,868,000 records in the past year in the country, ranking at No. 1 in the list of 2013 BRIT Awards artist nominees. Rihanna's fifth headlining concert tour , the Diamonds World Tour, began in March 2013, in support of Unapologetic . Rihanna then appeared in the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg comedy film This Is the End , which was released in June 2013. That same month, American hip hop artist Wale released a remixed version of his single "Bad" featuring Rihanna. In October 2013, Eminem released his Rihanna-assisted single, "The Monster", as the fourth release from his eighth studio album The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013).

In October 2017, Shakka revealed that he was working with Rihanna on her "absolutely insane" album. In December 2018, Rihanna announced that it is a reggae project. In December 2019, Rihanna alluded to her album being complete and indefinitely withholding the release date in an Instagram post. On October 28, 2022, Rihanna released the first single from the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack "Lift Me Up".

With sales of over 250 million records worldwide, Rihanna is the second-best-selling female music artist of all time. She has earned 14 number-ones and 31 top-ten singles in the US and 30 top-ten entries in the UK. Her accolades include nine Grammy Awards , 13 American Music Awards (including the Icon Award), 12 Billboard Music Awards , six Guinness World Records , and the NAACP 's President's Award. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2018. Forbes ranked her among the top ten highest-paid celebrities in 2012 and 2014. As of 2022, she is the wealthiest female musician, with an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion.

Aside from music, Rihanna is known for her involvement in humanitarian causes, entrepreneurial ventures, and the fashion industry. She is the founder of the nonprofit organisation Clara Lionel Foundation, cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, and fashion house Fenty under LVMH ; she is the first black woman to head a luxury brand for LVMH. Rihanna has also ventured into acting, appearing in major roles in Battleship (2012), Home (2015), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), and Ocean's 8 (2018). She was appointed as an ambassador of education, tourism, and investment by the Government of Barbados in 2018, and was declared a National Hero of Barbados on the first day of the country's parliamentary republic in 2021, entitling her to the style of "The Right Excellent" for life. Rihanna will be headlining the halftime show for Super Bowl LVII on February 12, 2023.

Rihanna is a mezzo-soprano , with a range spanning from B 2 to C ♯ 6 . While recording tracks for her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), Rihanna took vocal lessons from Ne-Yo. She said of the experience, "I've never had vocal training, so when I'm in the studio, he'll tell me how to breathe and stuff... He'll call out these big fancy words: 'OK, I want you to do staccato.' And I'm like, 'OK, I don't know what that is.'" Her vocal performance on Loud (2010) received positive reviews from music critics.

Growing up in Barbados, she mainly listened to reggae , hip hop and soca music. When she first came to the US, she was exposed to different types of music with "rock being one of them, and I fell in love with it. [Now] I love rock music." During her debut, she recorded songs that were inspired by her Caribbean roots and described her early sound as "a fusion of reggae, hip-hop and R&B, with a little something different thrown in". Her early dancehall roots can be found on her debut album, Music of the Sun , and its follow-up, A Girl like Me . Her debut album demonstrates the influence of Rihanna's musical heritage of the Caribbean. After her second album, she slowly dismissed her dancehall and reggae roots.

Rihanna's musical career has been an experiment with new musical ideas and stated that she wants "to make music that could be heard in parts of the world that I'd never been to". She began incorporating a wide range of genres including, pop, R&B , reggae, dubstep , hip hop and EDM . During a review for Good Girl Gone Bad , Slant Magazine to write that Rihanna "finally figured out that she's a dance artist and the majority of the album is comprised of uptempo dance-pop [songs like]" "Push Up on Me" and "Don't Stop the Music". It represents a departure from the Caribbean sound of her previous albums and is described as a turning point in her career. While the first half of the record shares many 1980s pop influences with songs like "Don't Stop the Music" and "Shut Up and Drive", the second half retreats into standard R&B.

In her fifth album Loud , Rihanna reflects on the fun and energetic vibe she had while recording the album. The album is a mixture of ballads, party anthems and empowering love songs. Talk That Talk was similar to Rated R , as both contain hip hop, R&B, dancehall and dubstep genres. Loud and Talk That Talk saw her return to her dancehall roots ("Man Down" and "Watch n' Learn"). She also branched out into house music with tracks like "We Found Love", "Only Girl (In the World)" and "Complicated". Her songs are also inspired through record sampling from other artists.

Rihanna has named Madonna as her idol and biggest influence. She said that she wanted to be the "black Madonna" and praised her ability to reinvent herself throughout her career. She noted, "I think that Madonna was a great inspiration for me, especially on my earlier work. If I had to examine her evolution through time, I think she reinvented her clothing style and music with success every single time. And at the same time remained a real force in entertainment in the whole world." Another major influence on Rihanna's music and career has been Mariah Carey , whose song "Hero" she performed when Rihanna was still a teenager at her high school talent show. She revealed that Carey's song "Vision of Love" "was the song that made [her] want to do music."

In her youth, she would see Bob Marley on television because of his fame in the Caribbean. She stated, "He's one of my favourite artists of all time – he really paved the way for every other artist out of the Caribbean". She built a shrine in her home dedicated to the reggae legend and has covered Marley's "Is This Love" and Bob Marley & The Wailers ' "Redemption Song" during her concert tours. During her childhood, she would go around singing Whitney Houston songs and " A Whole New World " into her hairbrush so much that her neighbors started calling her "Robyn Redbreast". She also stated that one of the first songs she remembers falling in love with was Houston's version of " I Will Always Love You " and that it "was really inspiring, and it made me develop a passion for music, so really, she's partly responsible for me being here in this industry."

Rihanna was also influenced by Janet Jackson , Aaliyah , Tupac , Beyoncé and Destiny's Child . Other musical influences and idols include Celine Dion , Grace Jones , Lil' Kim , Alicia Keys , Prince , Fefe Dobson , and Brandy . Rihanna takes influence from the different types of music she discovered when she came to America and revealed that rock music was one of the first genres she fell in love with. She commented, "as I grow older, I want to know more about music. I want to discover more types of music". She cited Brandy's fourth studio album, Afrodisiac (2004), as her main inspiration for her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). In her early career, her music contained strong influences of Caribbean music, including reggae and dancehall . The music video of the song "Rude Boy" featured images inspired by her Caribbean roots.

Rihanna is regarded by the media as a pop and fashion icon, particularly since her third studio album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). Nick Levine of Digital Spy described Good Girl Gone Bad as "the closest thing to a Thriller that 2007/08 is likely to produce". According to Rolling Stone , her single "Umbrella" and her eighth album Anti are regarded as among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, respectively. Her single "We Found Love" was ranked by Billboard as the 24th biggest US Billboard Hot 100 hit of all time and her single "Work" has been credited by a Billboard editor for bringing the dancehall genre to the forefront of mainstream American music. Music critic Jayson Greene of Pitchfork described Rihanna as the most influential singer of the past decade, writing:

"Rihanna Voice has become an industry-wide idea, a creative property like the Korg synth or LinnDrum [...] We crave the thrill that you can only get when a dozen or so good ideas manifest themselves in a single voice. For the past 10 years, that voice has more or less been Rihanna's. Now that she's gleefully shredding it apart, she'll probably generate a whole new comet trail of Rihannabes. Inevitably, none of them will carry the charge, the glassy cool and subterranean heat, of the real thing."

Time magazine included Rihanna on its 100 Most Influential People in the World issue in 2012 and 2018, with Stella McCartney writing: "She's one of the coolest, hottest, most talented, most liked, most listened to, most followed, most impressive artists at work today, but she does it in her own stride. She works hard, very hard. She gives to her fans, friends and foundation not just herself but her energy and spirit." Rihanna was ranked one of the best dressed women in 2018, by luxury fashion retailer Net-a-Porter. On June 2, 2014, Rihanna was presented with the Fashion Icon lifetime achievement award from Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), a special prize reserved for "an individual whose style has made a significant impact on popular culture on an international stage". In August 2018, Billboard ranked Rihanna as the tenth biggest Hot 100 artist of all time, as well as the fifth biggest female act of all time. Billboard also ranked Rihanna the top Hot 100 artist of the 2010s decade. In 2014, Time magazine's pop stardom ranking metric ranked Rihanna second in history, based on all-time chart performance and contemporary significance.

Rihanna has become a dominating figure on social media and internet streaming, ranking at No. 1 on Forbes ' 2012 list of Social Networking Superstars. In 2013, Rihanna was also named the most influential pop star in the United Kingdom by UK channel 4Music. Rihanna's work has directly influenced numerous artists such as Lorde , Sam Smith , Little Mix , Rita Ora , Billie Eilish , Selena Gomez , Justin Bieber , Ellie Goulding , Kim Petras , Jennie from Blackpink , Marilyn Manson, Jessie J , SZA , Fifth Harmony , Camila Cabello , Demi Lovato , Alexandra Stan, Grimes , Sleater-Kinney, Tegan and Sara, Cover Drive , Cher Lloyd , Bad Gyal , and Era Istrefi .

Rihanna has an honorary title of Ambassador for Culture and Youth in Barbados. On February 22, 2008, former Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson launched the national "Rihanna Day" in their country. Although it is not a bank holiday , Barbadians celebrate it every year in honour of Rihanna. In February 2017, Rihanna was named Harvard University 's "Humanitarian of the Year" by the Harvard Foundation. During Rihanna's third annual "Diamond Ball", former U.S. president Barack Obama , praised Rihanna's work and stated: "[She's] become a powerful force in the fight to give people dignity." On September 20, 2018, Rihanna was appointed by the government of Barbados to be an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, with special duties of promoting "education, tourism and investment for the island." As of 2021, Rihanna is the world's wealthiest female musician with an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion. She was also listed among Forbes ' Top 100 Most Powerful Women of 2019. In 2020, she debuted on the Sunday Times Rich List , claiming third place on the list of Britain's richest musicians.

At the 2020 NAACP Image Awards, hosted by BET , Rihanna accepted the President's Award from Derrick Johnson . Johnson stated that "Rihanna has not only enjoyed a groundbreaking career as an artist and musician but has also distinguished herself as a stellar public servant. From her business achievements through Fenty to her tremendous record as an activist and philanthropist, Rihanna epitomizes the type of character, grace, and devotion to justice that we seek to highlight in our President's Award."

Business career

Rihanna's first fragrance, Reb'l Fleur, was released in January 2011. According to Rolling Stone , Reb'l Fleur was a financial success and was expected to gross US$80 million at retail by the end of 2011. Rihanna's second fragrance, Rebelle, was released in February 2012. The promotional campaign for Rebelle, was shot by director, Anthony Mandler, who also shot the promotional campaign for Reb'l Fleur. In November 2012, Rihanna released her third fragrance, Nude. Rihanna's fourth women's fragrance, titled Rogue was released on September 14, 2013, followed by a male version entitled Rogue Men which was released in 2014.

On March 30, 2015, it was announced that Rihanna is a co-owner, with various other music artists, in the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West , Beyoncé, Madonna, Chris Martin , Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. "The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value", stated Jay-Z on the release of Tidal. In 2016, it was revealed that Rihanna would be releasing her music through her own label Westbury Road Entertainment, which was established in 2005. Westbury Road is the name of her Barbados residence. The music would be distributed through Universal Music Group . Westbury Road Entertainment's artist roster includes Melissa Forde as the label's photographer, and KazeLoon.

In November 2015, Rihanna and Benoit Demouy launched a beauty and stylist agency named Fr8me . The business based in Los Angeles was set up in order to assist artists in booking commercials, editorial shoots, ad campaigns, and red-carpet appearances. Rihanna stated, "Hair, makeup, and styling play an important role in creativity; I am very involved with that part of my process, so this agency was an organic thing for me to do." The roster includes Rihanna's makeup artist Mylah Morales, wardrobe stylist Jason Bolden, hairstylist Patricia Morales and Marcia Hamilton. In addition to Fr8me, Rihanna opened a photo agency called "A Dog Ate My Homework", which represents photographers Erik Asla and Deborah Anderson.

Fenty was a fashion brand by Rihanna under the luxury fashion group LVMH , which launched in May 2019. She was the first woman to create an original brand for LVMH and also the first woman of color to lead an LVMH brand. The house launched in a pop-up store on May 22, 2019, in Paris, before launching worldwide online on May 29 and included clothing, accessories, and footwear. It was the first line that LVMH had launched since 1987. The fashion brand was described as groundbreaking, and in a statement regarding the launch, Rihanna said that she had been given a "unique opportunity to develop a fashion house in the luxury sector, with no artistic limits." Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic , in February 2021, Rihanna and LVMH decided to "put on hold" her Fenty fashion house and continue building on the SavagexFenty lingerie line.

Rihanna exclusively uses her surname for business endeavors not related to her music career so as not to conflate the two. In January 2019, Rihanna filed a lawsuit against her father, Ronald Fenty, over the use of the Fenty name for commercial purposes. The lawsuit alleges Rihanna's cosmetics brand, Fenty Beauty, was damaged commercially by her father's company, Fenty Entertainment, through misrepresentation of his company being affiliated with her. In September 2021 Rihanna dropped the lawsuit against her father.

In 2017, Rihanna launched her critically acclaimed cosmetics company Fenty Beauty under LVMH 's Kendo Brands. Rihanna owns 50 percent of Fenty Beauty, according to Forbes. The partnership was worth $10 million and would see Rihanna release various beauty products. The first installment of Fenty Beauty was released on September 8, 2017, in stores and online, available in over 150 countries. It included an array of products including foundations, highlighters, bronzers, blush compacts, lip glosses and blotting sheets and was praised for its diverse range for all skin colours. Time magazine named Fenty Beauty as one of "The 25 Best Inventions of 2017", citing the breadth of its range. In what has been dubbed the "Fenty Effect", the brand revolutionized the way other cosmetic brands approached diversity in marketing and product formulation: "Suddenly beauty houses – niche, establishment and those in between – began extending their shade ranges to accommodate a wider variety of skin tones. Forty shades became the new standard."

In July 2020, Rihanna launched a skin care brand called Fenty Skin.

Other ventures

Rihanna has ventured into other businesses and industries. In October 2005, Rihanna struck an endorsement deal with Secret Body Spray. In 2010, Rihanna featured in the Optus commercial, in conjunction with Optus supporting Rihanna's Last Girl on Earth. The same year Rihanna also featured in the Kodak commercial along with rapper Pitbull. In October 2010, she released a photo book featuring photos from the Last Girl on Earth tour and served as an accompaniment to her fourth studio album Rated R (2009). In 2011, Rihanna was the face of Nivea and Vita Coco.

Her first television program, Styled to Rock , premiered in the UK in August 2012 on Sky Living . In the 10-week series, Rihanna, Nicola Roberts, Lysa Cooper and Henry Holland assist up-and-coming British designers with their clothing lines. The US version of Styled to Rock premiered on October 25, 2013, on Bravo. In 2013, Rihanna collaborated with MAC Cosmetics and released her own summer, fall and holiday lines of makeup called "RiRi hearts MAC". In July 2013, lager production company Budweiser announced that Rihanna had become a part of their global "Made For Music" campaign, also co-starring Jay-Z.

Early in her career, Rihanna made clear her interest in fashion and desire to work in the clothing design industry. Regarding this, she said, "Fashion has always been my defense mechanism". In November 2011, Rihanna announced her first fashion venture with Armani . In February 2013, Rihanna presented her first women's fashion collection at London Fashion Week for British brand River Island, collaborating with her personal stylist Adam Selman. They published three more collections for the brand. Rihanna then collaborated with numerous fashion house's including Dior, Stance and Manolo Blahnik . In March 2015, Rihanna was chosen as the new face of Dior; making her the first black woman to be the face of the brand.

In 2014, Rihanna became the creative director of the fashion sportswear Puma , overseeing the brand's women's line which will include collaborations in apparel and footwear. The following year, Rihanna released her first trainer with Puma and it sold out online within three hours of its pre-sale launch. Over the next two years, Rihanna released various other footwear in different colorways and styles, which were all met positively by both critics and buyers. 2016 saw Rihanna debut her first clothing line in collaboration with Puma at New York Fashion Week; the collection was met with rave reviews from fashion critics.

Rihanna made her acting debut in a cameo role in the straight-to-DVD film Bring It On: All or Nothing , released in August 2006. Rihanna starred as Petty Officer (GM2) Cora Raikes in her first theatrical feature film Battleship , which was released on May 18, 2012. Loosely based on the game of the same name , both the film and Rihanna's performance received mixed-to-negative reviews; the New York Times said she was "just fine in the rather generic role". In 2015, Rihanna appeared in the voice role of Tip in the animated feature film Home alongside Jim Parsons and Jennifer Lopez ; the film was based on The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex .

Rihanna played the recurring role of Marion Crane in the fifth and final season of Bates Motel . The show received universal acclaim from critics. Rihanna also had a major role in the Luc Besson film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets , an adaptation of the comic book series Valérian and Laureline . Also starring Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne , the film was released by STX Entertainment on July 21, 2017, in the US Rihanna was one of the all-female cast in the heist film Ocean's 8 , directed by Gary Ross and released by Warner Bros. on June 8, 2018. The movie grossed $300 million worldwide and became a major box office success.

In August 2018, it had been reported that Rihanna had been filming a secret project in Cuba titled Guava Island throughout that summer alongside Donald Glover . Glover's Atlanta collaborator Hiro Murai was directing, with Letitia Wright and Nonso Anozie also involved. The trailer for the full-length movie premiered on November 24 at the PHAROS festival in New Zealand. The exact details project were not announced until April 2019 when advertisements for Guava Island appeared on Spotify indicating something happening on "Saturday Night | April 13". It was later revealed Amazon Studios would distribute the film and Regency Enterprises had financed the film, which was released on April 13.

In 2006, she created her Believe Foundation to help terminally ill children. In 2007, Rihanna was named as one of the Cartier Love Charity Bracelet Ambassadors, with each celebrity representing a different global charity. To help raise awareness and combat HIV/AIDS , Rihanna and other public figures designed clothing for the February 2008 H&M Fashion Against AIDS line. In 2008, Rihanna performed a series of charity concerts entitled A Girl's Night Out to benefit the Believe Foundation. The concerts were made free for the public. Money from sponsors and advertisers were to be donated to provide medical supplies, school supplies and toys to children in need. In September 2008, Rihanna contributed to the song "Just Stand Up!" with fifteen other female artists, who shared the stage to perform the song live on September 5, 2008, during the "Stand Up to Cancer" television special. The proceeds from the single were given to the fundraiser. The television special helped raise $100 million for cancer research.

Rihanna founded the Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF) in 2012, in honor of her grandparents, Clara and Lionel Braithwaite. Programs include the Clara Braithwaite Center for Oncology and Nuclear Medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados, and education programs. The CLF hosts an annual Diamond Ball charity fundraiser event. The inaugural event in 2014 raised over $2 million and the second raised over $3 million. On February 12, 2012, Rihanna performed a benefit show at the House of Blues to raise money for the Children's Orthopaedic Center and the Mark Taper-Johnny Mercer Artists Program at Children's Hospital. In November 2012, Rihanna gave $100,000 to food bank donation for Hurricane Sandy . On January 3, 2014, Rihanna was part of the MAC Viva Glam campaign, which benefits women, men and children living with HIV/AIDS. In March 2020, Rihanna donated $5,000,000 to COVID-19 relief and followed that up with additional donations of personal protective equipment to the state of New York and an offer of $700,000 worth of ventilators to her home country Barbados . In April 2020, Rihanna further donated an additional $2,100,000, matching Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for a total of $4,200,000, to provide support and resources to individuals and children suffering from domestic violence amid the lockdown.

Rihanna owns a $14 million penthouse in Lower Manhattan . She also purchased a house in West London for £7 million in June 2018, to be closer to her work with her FENTY fashion label. In December 2018, Rihanna put her Hollywood Hills mansion up for sale after a break-in six months before. The mansion was reported to have sold for $10.4m. Forbes began reporting on Rihanna's earnings in 2012.

Rihanna began dating American singer Chris Brown in 2007. After their relationship ended in February 2009, she entered an on-again, off-again relationship with Canadian rapper Drake , which lasted from 2009 to 2016. During an interview with Rolling Stone in January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she had rekindled her relationship with Brown, although he remained under probation for their 2009 domestic violence case. Their reunion followed persistent media speculation that occurred throughout 2012. In May 2013, Brown stated during an interview that he and Rihanna had broken up again. In 2017, Rihanna began dating Saudi businessman Hassan Jameel . They split in January 2020.

On May 19, 2021, American rapper ASAP Rocky confirmed during an interview with GQ that he and Rihanna were in a relationship. On January 31, 2022, it was revealed that the couple was expecting their first child. On May 19, 2022, it was confirmed that Rihanna had given birth to a son. On May 10, 2023, Rocky and Rihanna revealed their son's name as RZA Athelaston Mayers, named after Wu-Tang Clan leader and founder RZA . On February 12, 2023, during the Super Bowl LVII halftime show performance, Rihanna revealed she was pregnant with her second child, becoming the first person to headline a Super Bowl halftime show while pregnant. The pregnancy was confirmed in a British Vogue cover story featuring her family, which was released days after the Super Bowl appearance. On August 1, 2023, they welcomed their second son, named Riot Rose Mayers.

As of September 2018 [update] , Rihanna has sold over 250 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards and honors, including 9 Grammy Awards , 12 Billboard Music Awards, 13 American Music Awards , 8 People's Choice Awards , among others. Rihanna received the "Icon Award" at the 2013 American Music Awards and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. She holds six Guinness World Records . In the United States, Rihanna has sold over 10 million albums, while Nielsen SoundScan ranked her as the best-selling digital artist in the country, breaking a Guinness World Record for digital single sales of over 58 million as of 2012.

On July 1, 2015, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that Rihanna had surpassed more than 100 million Gold and Platinum song certifications. In doing so, Rihanna has the most digital single awards and is the first and only artist to surpass RIAA's 100 million cumulative singles award threshold. In the United Kingdom, she has sold over 7 million albums, making her the third best-selling female artist this century. According to Billboard , her total album sales stand at 54 million copies sold worldwide.

Rihanna has accumulated 14 No. 1 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for the third most No. 1 songs in the chart's history. She has been named the top Mainstream Top 40 chart artist of the past twenty years by Billboard ; she ranks first with most entries (36), most top tens (23) and most No. 1 songs (10). As of March 2014 [update] , Rihanna has sold over 18 million singles and 6 million albums in the United Kingdom. She is the tenth best-selling and the second best-selling female singles artist in the country, only behind Madonna and is second only to the Beatles for the most million-selling singles in the UK of all time. Her collaboration with Eminem, "Love the Way You Lie", along with "Umbrella", "Disturbia", "Only Girl (In the World)", "We Found Love" and "Diamonds", are among the best-selling singles of all time. Rihanna has seven No. 1 singles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and Airplay chart, as well as sixteen No. 1 singles on the Rhythmic chart. She has also earned over 30 top-ten songs in the UK and Australia, making her the only artist in the 21st century to achieve this feat so far.

• Music of the Sun (2005)
• A Girl like Me (2006)
• Good Girl Gone Bad (2007)
• Rated R (2009)
• Loud (2010)
• Talk That Talk (2011)
• Unapologetic (2012)
• Anti (2016)
• Bring It On: All or Nothing (2006)
• Battleship (2012)
• This Is the End (2013)
• Home (2015)
• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
• Ocean's 8 (2018)
• Guava Island (2019)

As a headliner

• Rihanna: Live in Concert (2006)
• Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (2007–2009)
• Last Girl on Earth Tour (2010–2011)
• Loud Tour (2011)
• Diamonds World Tour (2013)
• Anti World Tour (2016)

As a co-headliner

• The Monster Tour (with Eminem ) (2014)

Promotional tours

• A Girl's Night Out (2008; a series of charity concerts to benefit the "Believe Foundation")
• 777 Tour (2012; in support of her seventh studio album Unapologetic )
• This page was last modified on 14 February 2024, at 16:05. Suggest an edit .

Rihanna Height, Weight, Age, Boyfriend, Husband, Family, Biography & More

Some lesser known facts about rihanna.

• Does Rihanna Smoke? Yes
• Does Rihanna drink alcohol? Yes
• Music producer Evan Rogers spotted Rihanna for the first time when he was in Barbados on a holiday with his wife.
• Rihanna took over control for creating her third album Good Girl Gone Bad and was not ready to compromise on the creative process.
• Rihanna has to her name, five  Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified platinum albums.
• She won a Grammy for her album Unapologetic and her album ANTI, hit the Billboard 200 at the top position even when the album was not released properly.
• Rihanna has multiple singles and collaborations that have been the best-selling singles  of all time.
• She’s sold more than 200 million copies worldwide which makes her one of the best selling artists.
• She would’ve liked to study Psychology in case she wasn’t a singer, although her favorite subjects were mathematics and chemistry.
• Rihanna is the youngest artist who won fourteen number one Billboard Hot 100 Chart-ratings and that too in the shortest span of of career of all.
• Rihanna has eight Grammys and eight American Music Awards to her name, along with 2 BRIT Awards and the inaugural Icon  Award at the American Music Awards 2013.
• She has been awarded with a  Lifetime Achievement Award  by the  Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2014.
• She has seen a lot of drug and emotional abuse in her childhood. Her father was addicted to cocaine, crack and alcohol and her parents had rough marriage; which could be the reason for tumor-strong headaches as she ceased to experience them as her parents divorced when she was fourteen.
• Rihanna has a turtle and two dogs Marley and DJ.
• Rihanna was classmates with  Carlos Brathwaite and  Darren Sammy .
• The England and West Indies cricketers, Chris Jordan and Kraigg Brathwaite (respectively) were her classmates in school.
• Rihanna was admitted in a sub-military program, where she was a army cadet, commanded by  the singer-songwriter Shontelle. 
• Rihanna won a talent show and a beauty pageant contest at her school.
• Rihanna stayed on the charts till the end of the year ad with her 8th single hitting it too, she was called “Diva of the Year” for her power and presence on the charts.
• For some reason, after Rihanna dropped the label Def Jam and joined Roc Nation , her album ANTI did not include her initial three releases – “Bitch Betta Have Money”, “American Oxygen” and “Four Five Seconds”. However, ANTI became her second album to rank number one on Billboards 200.
• She still keeps in touch with her Bajan friends.
• Rihanna is official ambassador for Barbados’ tourism agency.
• Rihanna had signed a $25 million with Samsung in October 2015, where she agreed to sell the Samsung Galaxy range and Samsung would support release her album ANTI and its World Tour.
• Rihanna’s voice type is mezzo-soprano and her vocal range is three scales and two notes.
• Rihanna took vocal-lessons from Ne-Yo while she was recording  Good Girl Gone Bad.  She had never had any vocal training before this.
• She would sing Whitney Houston’s songs, brushing her hair, so much that her neighbors started calling her ‘Robyn Redbreast’.
• New York Times  named her cookie-cutter teen queen because of her ability to change styles frequently. She said her inspiration for fashion comes from her mother.
• She broke a Guinness World Record by selling 58 million copies of a single in 2012.
• Rihanna co-owns the music streaming  business  Tidal with several other artists.
• Rihanna’s and all her siblings’ names start with the letter ‘R’.
• She used to sell clothes on a stall with her father.
• She was rumored to be dating Jay-Z when he was dating Beyonce already. The rumors were false but helped Rihanna get some attention.
• Rihanna asked her fans  not  to bring umbrellas to her concerts, so that they dont hurt each other while doing her steps.
• Barbados has actually made Rihanna’s birthday a national holiday! Her way of saying thank you was doing a free concert for her fans.
• Her mother would return every gift she would get for her after checking the prices and finding them too expensive. Now it’d be hard to return a five-bedroom house! Which she could not.
• Her line of fragrances are named as ‘Nude’ and ‘Rebelle’!
• She always chug a short or too of dark liquor before her shows.
• Rihanna and Katy Perry are good friends and she threw her a Bachelorette Party  in Las Vegas.
• She has 19 tattoos and still counting. No wonder she likes hanging out in the tattoo shops.
• Rihanna has several wax models around the world and her legs are insured at $1 million.

Rihanna adorned a striking pink look complemented by Indian jewelry at the event in Jamnagar, Gujarat, India

References/Sources: [ + ]

Rihanna Reveals the True Timeline She and A$AP Rocky Began Their Romance

Rihanna—who shares kids riot and rza with a$ap rocky—recently confirmed when exactly her relationship with the rapper evolved from friendship into something more..

It turns out,  Rihanna  and  A$AP Rocky  found love in  a hopeless place  2019. 

Indeed, the "We Found Love" singer confirmed, after years of speculation, when the pair's longtime friendship turned romantic . And according to Rihanna, it was a natural progression for the like-minded creatives. 

"We saw fashion the same. We saw creative the same," she explained in a conversation with former stylist Mel Ottenberg   for  Interview  published April 9 . "We ended up in the same circles a lot. And past that, when we grew up, we ended up supporting each other's brands and products and creative all the time. I would wear his s--t, he would show up to my launches. But it wasn't until the end of 2019..."

And when Mel wondered if either Rihanna or A$AP had slid into the other's DMs in order to progress their friendship, she quickly said that wasn't the case. 

"We've known each other for a long time," the 36-year-old explained. "I've seen him in relationships. He's seen me in relationships. We've seen each other outside of relationships. We knew what we're capable of, and the trouble that we could bring to each other's lives. We can make or break each other's hearts. And so, we started dating with a lot of caution." 

She continued, "I just let whatever was supposed to happen, happen. It was just, 'This is a flower. It's either going to die or blossom. But I'm going to let it decide itself.'"

And now, four years and two kids later , it looks like that flower has more than bloomed into a flourishing relationship—one that was accelerated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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"COVID sped up our relationship," Rihanna shared. "Which I felt like God knew we needed because we were going to start a family. And had it not been for COVID, we would've taken a lot more time to get comfortable with each other, to even know that we were ready."

Now parents to sons  RZA , 22 months, and  Riot , 8 months, when she looks back at when she and A$AP started their family , the Grammy winner still marvels over how natural it all felt. 

"We didn't even really talk about it," Rihanna remembered. "There was no denying it. It was the best thing that ever happened to us. It just happened."

She continued, "When someone sees you completely, and believes in you, and thinks you're worthy of being the mother of their kids, it's a great feeling. I felt the same about him. I knew he would be a great dad."

For a look back at how Rihanna and A$AP's romance blossomed, keep reading. 

In 2012, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky performed their hit "Cockiness" at the MTV Video Music Awards, and their number was so good it deserved a trophy. This wouldn't be the last time the two shared the stage as they went on tour together in 2013.

Fans had this song on replay after Rihanna and A$AP Rocky released the music video for "Fashion Killa" in 2013.

As the years went on, they remained friends. In 2018, they attended the Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring/Summer 2019 show as part of Paris Fashion Week and, of course, they totally slayed.

They also attended The Fashion Awards in 2019, with Rihanna dazzling in a mint Fenty dress and A$AP Rocky looking sharp in a black suit.

Met Gala official! Rihanna and A$AP Rocky attended the 2021 Met Gala together in style, with the "Umbrella" singer wearing a black Balenciaga gown and the "A$AP Forever" artist donning a custom ERL quilt and a tuxedo.

After announcing they were expecting their first baby, Rihanna recalled  keeping her pregnancy a secret from her friends . "It was harder for me to keep it from my posse, because they're around me, they know my habits," she told E!'s  Justin Sylvester . "They're like, 'You don't want something to drink? You're not smoking?' And I'm eating all the things I'm not used to eating. They know I hate sweets and I'm all of a sudden asking for cookies and donuts. But finally, I just had to let it all out, and they were all shocked, of course, as the world was shocked as well."

SOS! These photos are so sweet! As Rihanna and A$AP prepared for their bundle of joy, she continued to show her incredible pregnancy style.

While fans wondered if A$AP Rocky had proposed to Rihanna after seeing them sport the words "Marry me?" and "I do" across their teeth in his "D.M.B." video, sources close to the couple told TMZ in May 2022 the two aren't engaged.

And baby makes three! Multiple outlets report that the couple welcomed a baby in Los Angeles.

She debuted her second pregnancy during the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show.

The pair take the 2023 Met Gala together in honor of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld. 

Rihanna accompanied A$AP Rocky during his performance at a Spotify party in Cannes, France.

August 2023

The couple welcomed their second child, son  Riot . One month later, they shared their first photos as a family of four in a rare photoshoot. 

Rihanna confirmed her romance with A$AP began at the end of 2019 . 

"I've seen him in relationships. He's seen me in relationships," she explained of their long history. "We knew what we're capable of, and the trouble that we could bring to each other's lives. We can make or break each other's hearts. And so, we started dating with a lot of caution."  

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Rihanna Reveals Son RZA’s First Word While Posing in New Photos With ‘Interview Magazine’

RiRi also described the 'racks' and 'bags' of baby clothes she has for both of her sons, whom she shares with A$AP Rocky.

Rihanna “can’t believe [she has] two babies,” the 36-year-old R&B icon said in a new conversation with Interview Magazine . While she’s been busy with motherhood over the past two years, the “Umbrella” hitmaker hasn’t opened up about her two sons, RZA and Riot , in length. However, she’s giving insight into what it’s been like raising her babies while posing in new pictures for the magazine.

In the cover shot for the outlet’s spring 2024 issue, Rihanna is dressed in a nun-themed outfit with blue eyeshadow and ruby red lipstick. In another image, she appears in a blonde wig and a blue sweater with extra blush on her cheeks.

While gushing over how her significant other, A$AP Rocky , is “the best” RiRi joked that when it comes to fashion, she always feels “bummy as s**t next to this man.”

“I feel like, goddamn, I look like his assistant,” she continued. “I’m getting on a plane. We should be in sweats. He wants to be in a full Bottega suit. I’m like, “Why you got to do that to me?” Upon being asked whether there is any competition between her and the 35-year-old rapper over fashion, Rihanna responded, “No. It’s more like I spend my time getting the kids dressed to death, and then I’m like, “What’s the most comfortable outfit to wear around them? What’s not going to feel uncomfortable on their face or on their body or make me feel like I can’t hold them properly?”

As for the couple’s two sons, Rihanna shared that she has “racks” and “bags” of clothes that are all “sized and organized” for both of her children.

“They’re all sized and organized, and then whatever gets too small for RZA, I put into bins so that Riot can have them next,” the mom of two added. “Riot is actually in all of RZA’s 1-year-old clothes already. He’s only 6 months. Everybody thinks Rocky dresses them because I dress them in Rocky outfits.”

The “Diamonds” artist then revealed what RZA’s first word was — “Hey” — and explained where her 23-month-old son picked up the word, pointing out that they turned the word into a tune between them.

“I used to try to get his attention all the time, and I would say, ‘Hey, hey, hey,'” Rihanna said. “And one day he said it back to me in the same melody, and I kept singing it and he kept following it over and over again.”

Apr. 18, 2024 Sumitomo Corporation

Sumitomo Corporation invests in Chilean biocontrol manufacturing company Bio Insumos Nativa - Aims to serve the biocontrol market from upstream to downstream -

Sumitomo Corporation (President and CEO, Shingo Ueno) has agreed to invest in Bio Insumos Nativa (hereinafter, “BIN”), a Chilean biocontrol manufacturing company, through Summit Agro South America, an agrochemical distribution company in South America. This investment will be deemed official once the various procedures required by law have been completed. With the growing global population making it essential to increase crop yields, the use of agrochemicals and fertilizers has been increasing year by year. The accompanying upsurge in environmental impact has become a major concern for the agricultural industry, and demand for biocontrol is rising in response. The market for biocontrol was on the order of USD 8,000 million (approximately 1.2 trillion yen) in 2023, representing a 16-fold increase over 18 years from USD 500 million (approximately 75 billion yen) in 2005, and it is forecast to grow to USD 15 billion (over 2 trillion yen) by 2029, accounting for approximately 20% of the total agrochemicals market of USD 75 billion (approximately 11 trillion yen). The Latin American market for biocontrol is expected to expand at an average annual growth rate of 15% through 2029 due to the registration system that encourages the use of biocontrol and their greater use among soybean growers and other large-scale dry-field farmers.

Aims of this investment and future development

BIN is a biocontrol manufacturing company established in Chile in 2002. In the microbial biocontrol sector, its primary focus, BIN is the largest player in the Chilean market, accounting for a 30% share. The company is currently the main supplier of the biocontrol products handled by Summit Agro South America and it has proven its market competitiveness through existing transactions and its development in Latin American countries, particularly Chile and Peru. In addition to the products currently on the market, there are several new biocontrol under development that are expected to expand the company’s sales in future. Prompted by this investment, BIN will begin participating in R&D/manufacturing from a more market-oriented perspective. Since biocontrol have less environmental impact and milder control effects than agrochemical, the company will also encourage wider use of biocontrol throughout the value chain by providing farmers with farm management/technical guidance to enable them to use biocontrol more effectively.

Sumitomo Corporation Group initiatives in the agrochemicals field

The Sumitomo Corporation Group has been engaged in agrochemical-related businesses for more than 40 years, and it is currently involved in the sale and distribution of agrochemicals, specialty fertilizers and other agricultural materials in about 40 countries worldwide, contributing alongside producers to global agricultural production. In 2017, the Group invested in Futureco Bioscience S.A., a manufacturer of biocontrol in Spain, thereby obtaining access to that company’s expertise in biocontrol R&D, manufacturing/formulation processing, and sales networks. With this latest investment, the Group is intent on acquiring an even broader product portfolio in the areas of biocontrol R&D, manufacturing, and formulation processing and on further expanding the products it handles and the extent of its sales customer network to achieve the growth required for the Group to meet the needs of the biocontrol market’s entire value chain from upstream to downstream. The Group will leverage the strength of its global network to address sustainable agricultural production with an eye to responding to megatrends such as environmental regulations and biodiversity efforts.

Profile of Bio Insumos Nativa

Related information.

• About Us：Chemical Solutions Group
• Our Business：Chemical Solutions Group
• Sumitomo Corporation Invests in European Biocontrol Company
• Topics (Sumitomo Corp.) 2024
• Sumitomo Corporation invests in Chilean biocontrol manufacturing company Bio Insumos Nativa

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Dalton Transactions

Bio-inspired bimetallic models for electrochemical co2 reduction.

Inspired by the carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) active site where two metal ions synergistically catalyze the interconversion between CO2 and CO, we have developed a family of rhenium dipyridine derivatives (1-3), in which potassium 1-aza-18-crown-6-ether (KN18C6) moiety functioning as a Lewis acid to assist the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). We found that such design leads to dramatically strong deposition on the electrode under CO2 in the presence of potassium cation, and a clear trend for the depositon rate was observed following the flexibility of linkage between the framework and the KN18C6 moiety, the more flexible the faster. The origin of deposition was further characterized by a series of control experiment and infrared spectroelectrochemistry (IR-SEC). Unfortunately, the deposition suppresses the following C-O bond cleavage reaction

Supplementary files

• Supplementary information PDF (10307K)
• Crystal structure data CIF (44K)

Article information

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W. Feng, Y. Xiong, P. Zhang, M. Li, Y. Zhang, F. Li and L. Chen, Dalton Trans. , 2024, Accepted Manuscript , DOI: 10.1039/D4DT00858H

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Nike unveiled the products that Team USA, as well as other countries, will be wearing during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. The presentation, held at the Palais Brongniart in the French capital during the Nike Air Innovation Summit last week, featured Track and Field uniforms and new Air shoes. See photos below.

Nike Air Innovation Summit

Serena Williams at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris , France.

Anna Cockrell at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Sha’Carri Richardson at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Atmosphere at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Ricardo Pepi at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Julian Weber at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Gabby Williams at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Grace Geyoro at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Malaika Mihambo at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Tatyana McFadden at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Faith Kipyegon at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Gavin Bottger at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

Kerolin Nicoli at the Nike Air Innovation Summit held at the Palais Brongniart on April 11, 2024 in Paris, France.

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