Via Esquire.co.uk: You’ve been waiting for this for a while so here it is – a sneak preview of our July photoshoot with Rihanna.

These behind the scenes photos were taken back in February at a studio in Dalston, East London. As you can see, the photoshoot itself is going to be well worth waiting for.

See the full shoot and read the revealing interview with Rihanna in the July issue of Esquire, on sale June 4th.

Also keep an eye out for our exclusive Rihanna video, plus some more exclusive online shots from the photoshoot – coming soon.

Photographs by Melissa Forde

She’s currently the May 2012 ELLE cover girl, and now Rihanna will be adding Harper’s Bazaar to her impressive magazine frontwoman credentials. The Barbadian beauty took to Malibu, CA this weekend (April 21) while getting all glammed up for her very first photo shoot for the popular fashion magazine.

According to a source on the scene, the “We Found Love” songstress made a midday arrival while spending about an hour and a half getting her hair and make-up done while perched inside her eco-friendly ‘Verde’ trailer. As for the photo shoot location, Rihanna and the Harper’s crew were situated at a picturesque Malibu canyons ranch with the main house having been built from an old Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Putting in the long hours to get things just right, the 24-year-old finally finished up her efforts around midnight before heading back home.

Via Celebrity Gossip

Great news, Rihanna Navy! RiRi will be on the cover of Harper’s BAZAAR magazine! She tweeted:

I did my first #HB cover TODAY!!!! “@EthanExposed: @rihanna You should do a photoshoot with BAZAAR… #MAJAH”

We believe this is the photo shoot location. Can’t wait!

Harper’s Bazaar is an American women’s fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”

Aimed at members of the upper-middle and upper classes, Bazaar assembles photographers, artists, designers and writers to deliver a “sophisticated” perspective into the world of fashion, beauty and popular culture on a monthly basis.

Check out the full article featuring Rihanna from the latest Elle magazine! Make sure to purchase your copy!

Many thanks to Inti for the scans!!

The Barbadian beauty opens up about finding love, having children, and how the incident with Chris Brown was her “liberation”:

On having kids: “It could be tomorrow. It could be 20 years from now. I just feel like when the time is right, God will send me a little angel. But first, of course, I have to find a man. I mean, there’s a very important missing piece to the puzzle here!”

On finding that man: “I feel like it’s hard for everybody! I don’t think it has anything to do with being famous. There’s just a major drought out there. […] But I just need to find the person who balances me out, because then things like my schedule won’t matter. I’ve done it before, so I know I can do it again.”

On her breakup with Chris Brown: “It gave me guns. I was like, well, fuck. They know more about me than I want them to know. It’s embarrassing. But that was my opening. That was my liberation, my moment of bring it. […] Now you know that, so you can say what you want about it. I don’t have anything to hide.”

On the backlash over their reconciliation: “The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently. It’s very hard for me to accept, but I get it. People end up wasting their time on the blogs or whatever, ranting away, and that’s all right. Because tomorrow I’m still going to be the same person. I’m still going to do what I want to do.”

Photoshoot

Behind the Scenes

Read the full interview and see more photos in the May issue on newsstands April 17!

For this month’s cover shoot, ELLE Creative Director Joe Zee imagined a romantic narrative starring Rihanna as the fiery heroine in a passionate affair with a salsa dancer. On an early February morning, the ELLE production team transformed the Veluzat Motion Picture Ranch northwest of Los Angeles into the ideal backdrop: a windswept town evocative of documentary photographer Robert Polidori’s shots of deserted, patina-rich Havana interiors. Photographer Tom Munro went full Hollywood, using a RED digital camera to film the entire shoot as a movie, with dialogue, extras—the works! We couldn’t think of a better way for Rihanna to embrace her new persona as a blond bombshell—a color she chose exclusively for our shoot—than acting out in fabulous couture pieces from Atelier Versace and styles from Balmain and Jil Sander. Ur­sula Stephen, RiRi’s hairstylist and longtime friend, smoothed her bold new locks with a conditioning mask, and makeup artist Mylah Morales chose black eyeliner to give our cover girl a sultry look. Whether Rihanna was hamming it up during love scenes or defying gravity by running across the set’s dirt roads in sky-high Dior heels, her unstoppable energy was as infectious as the salsa music playing on set.

Rihanna is the latest covergirl on swiss magazine “Friday”. Check out the scans in our gallery!

Thanx @Slayenty for the tip

She was dubbed the Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire magazine and recruited by Vogue magazine to front its 10th annual shape issue last year. But Barbadian beauty Rihanna, 24, has revealed that for years she didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. And taking a typically unconventional approach she found the more time she spent naked the more able she was to tackle her confidence issues.

‘The more I got naked the more comfortable I felt. I just had to face my fear,’ she revealed to Women’s Fitness magazine.

Since overcoming her inner demons the songstress has sold more than 25 million albums and 60 million singles worldwide making her one of the best selling artists of all time. And this spring she is set to take on her first acting role in the action thriller Battleship alongside Taylor Kitsch and Liam Neeson.

She added: ‘You always find something wrong, you always find something you’re uncomfortable with, and one thing turns into another and you get embarrassed and self-conscious about it. After a while, it was like, “What’s the worst that can happen?” and I just started being a little more daring with it. It was just knowing my body is the way it is no matter what that helped me, knowing that it is what it is under clothes or outside of clothes.’ But she admits that her confrontational tactic might not work for everyone, adding: ‘My way probably won’t work for most people.’

To maintain a toned physique she regularly works out, and in preparation for her debut film role, in which she plays a naval weapons officer, she stepped up her exercise regime with the help of her personal trainer.

‘I had to do a lot of physical training with a personal trainer as well as a soldier, and it was gruesome, but fun,’ she said. ‘One man drilled me, yelled at me, made me do push-ups. It really got you in the mentality. The weapons were really heavy, so at times I had to hold a 5lb sandbag just to get used to drawing it the right way.’

Post-filming she upped her usual 10-minute cardio sessions to five 30-minute workouts a week, or three 25-minute sessions when she’s on the road.

Her personal trainer Harley Pasternak – who has also worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Robert Pattinson, Megan Fox, and Katy Perry – says Rihanna keeps in shape with short, sharp routines involving cardio, resistance work and core exercises.

‘If you want to work out like Rihanna, train hard and often, but not long. Rihanna is really driven, there’s no need for me to motivate her. She trains for at least 25 minutes at a time, and she loves skater lunges, deadlifts and dumbbell work… Her least favourite exercise is running.’

And to curb her appetite Harley, who’s known for his 5-Factor diet plans, has Rihanna eating five small, healthy meals a day which consist of a low-fat protein, a healthy carbohydrate, 10g of fibre, a healthy fat and a sugar-free drink.

But, Rihanna admits to indulging in a few of her guilty food pleasures, every so often.

‘My favourite food right now is microwave butter popcorn,’ she confesses. ‘And when I’m in London I’m close to authentic Jamaican food, so I tend to eat that every day.’

Rihanna’s 25 minute workout appears in Women’s Fitness which is on sale now, Battleship is in cinemas from 11 April in the UK.