RIHANNA DAILY » Magazine Covers

Rihanna covers Cosmopolitan Spain – November 2011

Natalie — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:45:33 +0000

Rihanna is featured on the cover of Spanish Cosmopolitan November issue. This is another edition including her recent interview with the magazine however this time it features yet unseen outtake from the shoot. And we love it! Check out full preview under the cut. If you have scans from this issue please e-mail us.

Rihanna IS Esquire’s 2011 Sexiest Woman Alive

Natalie — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:31:49 +0000

Some time ago we’ve reported that Rihanna was chosen as 2011 Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire magazine and though some started to doubt that now Esquire confirms – Rihanna was chosen as the sexiest woman alive and is featured on magazine’s cover!

Published in the November 2011 issue of Esquire, on sale later this week. Subscribe now. For full interview visit Esquire.com/Rihanna

BACKSTAGE AT THE IZOD CENTER, NEW JERSEY, A COUPLE DAYS LATER

Twenty-three years after being born poor in Barbados, eight years after being discovered there by a producer on vacation, six years after being signed by Jay-Z, two years after being savagely beaten by her former boyfriend, the asshole Chris Brown, nine months after releasing an album that has yielded three number-one singles, she emerges from the dressing room in full regalia and walks out into the big void under the stands of the Izod Center. She’s wearing the bikini. From here, about six feet away, you can see that it’s encrusted with dozens of small stones of various colors. It must weigh twenty pounds. It’s not as shiny up close. It’s chunky. It looks like a pain to wear. Like it might chafe.

She smells like coconut and vanilla. In her pink, orange, and yellow platform heels, she stands six two, easy.

She is lacquered. She glistens. She looks wet, actually. As if she’s just been dipped into the baptismal font. She wipes herself off with a paper towel. Her bodyguard watches this. And her personal assistant, Jen. And her best friend, Melissa. And her other best friend, her cousin Noella. (These three women make up the core entourage. They are with her always.) Her manager and Jay-Z’s right-hand man, Jay Brown, who has the best smile in the history of music. Her choreographer, Tanisha. Her image consultant, Ciara. Her two back-up singers. Guitar legend Nuno Bettencourt (the Nuno Bettencourt). The random assortment of people with all-access passes. Assemblages of bored men in color-coded T-shirts that say STAFF or VENDING or SECURITY. Everybody kind of looks as she wipes and preens and buffs herself to a perfect low gloss in a glorious ablution.

She sips vodka as she walks down a corridor to the back of the stage.

She says, “House.” And the lights in the stadium go off. The crowd goes batshit.

Steps in the cage.

Eleven seconds.

Adjusts the bra.

Seven seconds.

Sprays her throat.

Six seconds.

Prays.

Three seconds.

Sweet Jesus, she’s praying three seconds before she goes out there. She prays for God (a loving, generous god) to come into the place (the Izod Center) and make it amazing for herself and for the audience, who are one (kind of a Unitarian Universalist deal).

(Never fails either. No shit? Because He’s awesome. Amen.)

First song.

Second song.

Third song.

Say you were right underneath stage right, in the wardrobe room. The music is muffled when you’re down here; it’s like listening to a neighbor’s loud stereo. The changing area is defined only by curtains. There’s a makeup table in the room and Jen and Beth, the wardrobe assistant, and a rack containing every outfit she will wear. They look smaller on hangers.

After the third song, you look up and see Rihanna running straight for you, hauling ass in her high heels. She is running so fast that she stops herself by holding on to the railing above her head. She kicks off her one shoe and then the other. She does not talk. You do not talk. Off comes the bikini top over her head. She pulls the bottom down over her fishnets. You hand her a white leather bodysuit as the band starts in on the cover of Prince’s “Darling Nikki.” When you fumble around a bit — and why wouldn’t you fumble around a bit? — she says, in a strained whisper, “Hurry the fuck up.” She hates talking to her team like that. She feels awful about it. But sometimes she has to. That’s just the way it is. That’s what she says over dinner a few days later.

DINNER AT HER FAVORITE RESTAURANT, GIORGIO BALDI, A QUAINT ITALIAN PLACE IN SANTA MONICA, A FEW DAYS LATER

Walking into the restaurant, you want there to be a big red wig as a kind of landmark. But there is no red wig. No extensions. Nothing. Just reddish-brown, shoulder-length hair in tight curls. Her actual hair. Normal hair. It looks newly shampooed. She is very much unpainted and unlacquered, and is altogether somewhat less Rihanna than when you saw her before. A simple gray tank, white pants, heels.

She’s already eaten. There are plates of pasta everywhere. Family-style. And glasses of moscato.

Jen, Melissa, and Noella are with her, of course.

The bodyguard sits by himself at another table.

After some small talk, the entourage core decamps. They just float away. She presents a plate of gnocchi. Have some!

Corner table. Ample elbow room. Candlelight. Gnocchi — cold, but still. Moscato. Shitty Italian music at exactly the right volume. Attentive waiters. Doting restaurant owners. It’s a delight is what it is.

She could not be more focused, engaged, affable. Her posture is impeccable.

She talks about how a day on tour works, about how after she’s Skyped with her vocal coach and sucked on lozenges and steamed her voice and done her own makeup (she always does her own makeup), Jen hands her the liquor for nerves.

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.

She talks about the simulated sex.

The way I pick the person is, whoever I feel doesn’t take themselves too seriously, or who I think would be majorly embarrassed about it. Like these old men… it’s hilarious.

She’s right. Come to think of it, it is hilarious.

Did you see the one who was getting way too comfortable?

What city?

I can’t remember the city, but I remember what the guy looked like.

What happened?

He was just getting excited.

Like he —

We have pictures.

Which is hilarious.

She talks about the show she’s going to play in Barbados in a couple of weeks — the first show she’s ever played in her home country.

Early on in your career, you used the word hate a lot when describing the way the people of Barbados responded to your success.

I grew to realize that that hate was just pride. I realized that it’s a part of our culture. I’m always representing Barbados. All over the world, no matter what I was doing, no matter what I achieved, no matter what award it was, I always shouted them out. So, I started making them feel like, “This is our girl. If people in the UK could get this excited about her, what’s wrong with us?”

You’re the most famous person in the history of your country.

And I never turned my back, too.

Here’s the thing about Barbados. The people of Barbados had no idea who Robyn Rihanna Fenty was until 2005, when The BarbadosAdvocate told them she signed a deal with Jay-Z in the U. S. Who is Rihanna? they asked. And they really wanted to know, too. Someone spray-painted it in big letters on a wall at the University of the West Indies: wHO IS RIHANNA? No one had ever heard of her. (Even the people who knew her didn’t know what she was up to in the U. S. They thought she was visiting her grandparents in Brooklyn.) She didn’t come up like singers usually come up in Barbados. She didn’t come up as a Caribbean singer — a “soca artist.” She never wanted to be that. She wanted to be Beyoncé or Mariah from the outset. So she found herself a couple of American producers who happened to hang out in Barbados.

Picture two white guys. Now picture two white guys who used to be in a group called Rhythm Syndicate — Carl Sturken on guitar, Evan Rogers on vocals. Their big hit was “P.A.S.S.I.O.N.” (1991. YouTube it. It is remarkable.) Then Nirvana happened and they transitioned into producing… everyone: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Kelly Clarkson. If a young woman was coming up in the late ’90s and early ’00s, she took a train from Manhattan to Bronxville, New York, to work with Carl and Evan.

They’d both married Bajan (pronounced like “Cajun,” based on how the British colonists pronounced “Barbadian”) women after being stranded there once after a gig, so they were in Barbados every year. On one of these trips, Evan got a call about a girl group that wanted to audition. So Robyn Fenty and her two friends went down to the Accra Beach Hotel on the southern coast and they sang three songs. Classic story: Evan calls up only one of them and says, “You were great.” So Robyn comes back the next day by herself, straight from Combermere School (a good school for smart kids, too — one of the best on the island). She was still wearing her gray school-uniform skirt. She sang a couple more songs for him that afternoon. She didn’t have a great voice, but she had something. And whatever it was, it was effortless. So Evan asked her to come to the U. S. to work with him and Carl in Bronxville. She could live with him and his wife, Jackie, in their place in Connecticut. So she did.

Her mom was there for a week. Robyn stayed for the rest of her life. A few months in, after rehearsing in Carl and Evan’s studios in New York, they took her to Def Jam: Jay-Z and his A&R guy, Jay Brown, who didn’t let her leave the building. Signed her that very night. Sure, she turned her back. But what fifteen-year-old wouldn’t?

The part about Chris Brown is like a needle scratching across a record, even though she literally doesn’t bat an eyelash. And she doesn’t bat an eyelash because it is the most obvious subject in the world.

It’s incredible to see how he pulled out of it the way he did. Even when the world seemed like it was against him, you know? I really like the music he’s putting out. I’m a fan of his stuff. I’ve always been a fan. Obviously, I had some resentment toward him for a while, for obvious reasons. But I’ve put that behind me. It was taking up too much of my time. It was too much anger. I’m really excited to see the breakthrough he’s had in his career. I would never wish anything horrible for him. Never. I never have.

Jen sits down at the table and doesn’t say anything.

Are you here to tell us to wrap it up?

Soon, yes. It’s about to be one, and we’ve got a shoot tomorrow.

Jen doesn’t leave the table. Just sits there and looks down at her BlackBerry.

Rihanna makes a pssst sound to grab Jen’s attention. Then she jerks her head toward the entourage core’s temporary field headquarters. So Jen gets up and goes back to where she was. Like a boss. Beautiful. It’s around one.

The conversation turns to sex. (Because it’s actually the most obvious subject in the world.)

At the end of a concert, I don’t feel like I’ve been this sexy thing. Really, I don’t even think about it.

What?

Unless it’s a song that really calls for it, like “Skin” or “S&M,” or when I cover “Darling Nikki.” There’s a section that’s called “Sex” in the show, which is the obvious section for sexuality.

There aren’t sexuality sections. The whole show is sex.

The whole show is in sections.

No, I’m saying —

I know what you’re saying.

I’m refuting what you’re saying.

But what I’m saying is —

I saw the show.

What I’m saying is, that’s the only part that’s deliberate, you know?

Huh.

Yeah!

Huh.

Like, really? Honestly, even if it comes across sexual — it has to be a part of my subconscious thought. It’s never deliberate in the rest of the show. I don’t even really… I could see “What’s My Name?” — the dancing is pretty sexy. “Rude Boy.” But I don’t know. I guess people find different things sexy.

Huh.

BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS. IN THE PRESS-BOX-TURNED-CATERING-ROOM AT KENSINGTON OVAL, THE NATIONAL CRICKET STADIUM

She’s been in Barbados for a week. As part of her duties as Barbados tourism ambassador (she recently signed a three-year contract), she danced in the final parade of the monthlong Crop Over Festival, the carnival season of Barbados. The videos of her dancing ended up on gossip sites in the U. S. (The video for “Cheers (Drink to That),” the last single off Loud, also contains footage of her dancing in the parade. It contains footage of much of what happens in Barbados.) Rihanna,one of the most successful pop singers in history, was wearing a skimpier costume than she had ever worn in public. She was dancing on a float (with Jen right next to her), drinking, occasionally jumping off the float to grind against someone. She was mocked online all over the place, but it looked like a really good time. And it was authentically Bajan.

It’s about four hours from showtime. There’s food set up in the press box.

Again, the pssst.

A kiss on one cheek. A kiss on the other cheek. No coconut. No vanilla. No heels. Almost no makeup. Her hair’s pulled back to reveal the full landscape of her forehead. She’s wearing an orange jumper. She looks sixteen.

The huge windows of the press box are covered by a shroud — black curtains that are split in a few places so you can see the field. She stands there staring into a split in the curtains. What she’s seeing is thousands of her countrymen assembled out on the pitch for her, for the first time.

The crowd is dressed up. Almost all of the women in the stadium look like they’re wearing brand-new cocktail dresses. At Rihanna shows in the U. S., nineteen-year-old girls wear matching black T-shirts that they’ve ripped and tied and bedazzled with Rihanna lyrics in puff paint: “I may be bad, but I’m perfectly good at it!” or “Chains and whips excite me.” Or they wear matching red wigs, just like Rihanna’s. But the Bajans look exalted.

She just stares out. She looks tentative. She asks about the mahimahi before catching an elevator to her dressing room one floor down.

THE FAMILY BOX, DURING THE SHOW Everybody’s up here on the balcony of the building that houses the press box of the Kensington Oval. Carl’s here. Her two brothers. A multitude of cousins. Grandpa’s in town from Brooklyn, along with Grandma. And Mom.Grandma and mom — the two women she gave a shout-out to back on Long Island. I like to say that I’m a bad bitch, she went on to say.

Right.

But they are badder bitches than me.

The ancestral bitches! The collective nod from the Long Island teenagers, the hands in the air, the approbative “Woo!” One bad bitch begat another bad bitch, who begat another. Respect.

Here in Barbados, when you get a good look at her, Rihanna’s grandma, a lovely woman, doesn’t look “bad bitch” at all.

The show is the same as any of the other Loud tour shows. The Barbados Department of Tourism wants it that way.

The only difference is this note of thanks:

I travel everywhere in the world and nothing feels like this place. And it all started two streets over from this oval where I grew up, where I was raised, right there in Westbury — singing in the shower, annoying my neighbors.

It’s true: From here, you’d just head up a couple blocks and take a left on Westbury Road. Ask anyone walking on the sidewalk, “Where’s Rihanna’s house?” Then just keep asking people. “Robyn’s my girl. I helped to raise her” you’ll get back. Zero in on a tiny house right off Westbury on one of the numbered streets, squeezed in with all the others on this narrow block, one of the poorer blocks in this middle-class country. More unlikely stories have been told, but you have to think real hard. And yeah, from the sidewalk outside her old house, you can hear anything going on in Kensington Oval.

SRP PRODUCTION STUDIOS IN BRONXVILLE, A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER

Carl and Evan are talking Rihanna in a room filled with tons of music equipment and posters and computers and guitars and pianos. The whole place is a series of dens. Their studios are in an affluent suburb about a half-hour’s ride from Grand Central. As white as white gets. This is the first place Robyn landed when she came to the States. She rehearsed here while she lived in Connecticut with Evan. She cut her first single here. She got ready for the big meetings here.

Carl and Evan talk about her like proud parents. (They are truly the kind of strange white guys you would want taking care of your Barbadian daughter in the earliest phases of her music career.) They bring out photo albums. And there she is! Right there with Britney before she was Britney, Christina before she was Christina, Jessica before she was Jessica. Girls. Four-by-sixes in sleeves.

They show videos.

There’s her first interview on MTV’s TRL. And her first performance for MTV’s Video Music Awards, where she and her dancers are wearing carnival gear. The crowd has been supplied with small Barbadian flags.

There’s one where she’s rehearsing a ballad in the same room we’re sitting in. She sounds good. Her voice is serviceable. She cringes when she hits a wrong note. She takes direction from Carl and Evan as she’s singing. She tries out a choreographed move with her arms and laughs like she’s embarrassed, but otherwise she stands completely still. She looks like she’s auditioning for a high school play.

You wanna see the signing video? You gotta see the signing video.

The signing takes place around three in the morning, after she’s sung three songs, incorporating a little choreography that she developed on her own. We had no idea. She practiced without telling us. Carl and Evan are in the room. Lawyers for both sides. Carl and Evan sign their deal first. Then she enters the camera’s field of view. She’s wearing an outfit she bought herself. White puffy jacket. White pants. Rihanna is not yet here. She sits down as Robyn at the head of the conference table. Sixteen years old. It’s like in the movies: “And here… and right here… and if you could just sign here… and here… and initial here.” Her smile grows with each signature. Someone pulls the papers away. Then she closes her eyes and makes a fist and pulls it down and, with a smirk, whispers, Yes.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/rihanna

Rihanna covers British Vogue (Updated)

Rodrigo — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:38:10 +0000

Rihanna’s British Vogue cover debut has been one of the magazine’s most anticipated issues since the singer herself let the cat out of the bag in late July. In short blonde wig and Armani Prive couture, the Bajan singer reveals a new quiet sophistication – although her interview with Christa D’Souza is just as loud, and controversial, as you might hope.

Rihanna has courted controversy with a series of edgy videos – including being tied up and taped to the wall with clingfilm in the video to her hit ‘S&M’. But in a Vogue interview, the singer insists: ‘That’s not me. That’s a part I play. You know, like it’s a piece of art… I just want to make music.’ The singer, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty, said that life with her parents, Monica Braithwaite and Ronald Fenty, a former crack addict, triggered her rebellious attitude. ‘I saw too much. I was way too mature for my age,’ she revealed.

The November issue of Vogue goes on sale from Thursday (October 6). Photos by Alasdair McLellan.

Click here to view a few magazine scans that include other beautiful photos.

Full interview and scans: Rihanna covers Glamour Magazine

Rodrigo — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:13:05 +0000

Rihanna is on the cover of the latest issue of Glamour Magazine. Scans and interview are available after the jump.

Rihanna likes to be in control.

So much so that her management has given her an easy way to cut our interview short: Our chat is to take place in an SUV on the way from the Glamour shoot to her apartment, a short drive away. But she keeps talking — candidly and often hilariously, and instead of stopping at her front door, she has her driver circle the block again and again, and we talk more.

What comes through more than anything is a tale of transformation: In Feburuary 2009, Rihanna endured the abuse of Chris Brown and the subsequent gossip frenzy. It was painful, she tells me, to lose control of her story and her image in that way; determined not to let that happen again, she has since reemergerd as the architect of her own fascinating comeback. On her self-revealing albums Rated R and Loud, on Twitter (and, as of mid-July, the most popular female on Facebook), in dramatic fashion choices and in interviews like this one, Rihanna has reinvented herself by becomes more, well, herself. “My whole life changed a couple years ago. That’s when I decided to let my guard down completly, she says sipping a Corona as the city scrolls by her tinted window. “There’s freedom in honesty. If you just face it today, tomorrow you can move on to something else.” Here’s Rihanna, very honestly.

Glamour: I wanted to show you this list: total number-one hits. You’ve had 10, and you’re the youngest artist to ever hit that mark — you topped Mariah Carey. Plus, you did it faster than any solo artist in Billboard’s history.
Rihanna: That’s kind of amazing, damn. I’ve never actually seen this list laid out like this. It’s kind of mind-blowing. I try to just be very, very apperciative.

Glamour: Can you top the Beatles record?
Rihanna: I’m heading there apparently [laughs] If I fall short, I’m still in good company.

Glamour: Your style has gotten more aggressive as your music has. Do you think of the two together in that way?
Rihanna: Absoulutely, and I don’t think of one without the other. My music definitely determines the direction we’re gonna move in. It’s like music, fashion, hair, makeup – that order.

Glamour: There are so many pop stars who blow up and then lose control. With you, from the moment you chopped your hair off, you were saying “No, I’m in control of what I’m doing.”
Rihanna: In the very beginning of my career, it was really strict for me. I couldn’t wear pink or red lipstick; it was just bizarre. We had a young fan base, and they were trying to keep me “fresh”. But I just really wanted to be myself. I wanted to be sassy, the attitude, all these things I am.

Glamour: Your sound keeps evolving too, and your lyrics keep getting more complicated and raw.
Rihanna: It was important for me to grow. Good Girl Gone Bad was the first time I really took the reins in my career creatively. Then Rated R came after that, and that’s where I realized, OK, my fans love the music; now I need to get a little deep with them, get a little more vulnerable, open up.

Glamour: That shift to more personal songs happened after everything with Chris Brown, and around the same time you went on Twitter and developed a different connection with your fans.
Rihanna: Definitely. That’s why I started Twitter. I was like, “Twitter is so dumb– why would I want anybody to know anything more about me?” But it was easy for my fans to believe everything else they were hearing about me — sites, blogs, rumors — because they weren’t really hearing much from me directly. Now they don’t believe the rumors anymore, because they know me.

Glamour: When you followed Chris Brown on Twitter, everyone freaked out and you jumped in with “It’s…twitter, not the altar!” What was that about?
Rihanna: That’s something people would love to make into more than it actually is, and I think that’s just something I’m gonna have to live with for the rest of my life, unfortunately.

Glamour: There’s a lyrics from Rated R that I love: “While you’re getting your cry on, I’m getting my fly on.” That struck me as the ultimate retail-therapy lyrics.
Rihanna: You’re right. It’s retail therapy for sure, but it’s also a very mean line, very cocky, very arrogant. It’s in part a character.

Glamour: It seems like when guys play characters — like Eminem in your controversial song together, “Love The Way You Lie”, about an abusive couple — nobody thinks that’s the real Eminem. But it does seem like when you do a song like that, everyone thinks that the real Rihanna.
Rihanna: Absolutely, and I’m very careful about the lyrics I sing because of stuff like that. Rated R was the album that became really real, very honest. After that, it’s hard to go back to doing songs that are complete fiction. There was no going back.

Glamour: I’ve heard you say that the dramatic lyrics of “S&M”, your megahit, are both metaphorical and literal.
Rihanna: Yeah! I had no idea how close the song “S&M” was to me until maybe five months ago. When I was singing it, it was a fun song, and I directed it at my love-hate relationship with the media, but it went so much further than that, and I didn’t even realize it. I started putting pieces of the puzzle together, seeing how it related to my childhood and how it affected my adult life.

Glamour: You’re talking of your father? [Ronald Fenty had substance-abuse problems and left Rihanna's home by the time she was a teenager]
Rihanna: I would say my relationship with my father has had a biger impact on me more than I knew. Even the things that I love, the things I am attracted to in pople. A lot of it stems from things that I’ve seen in my childhood.

Glamour: Does that mean you naturally look for trouble? You’re drawn to drama?
Rihanna: Yes and no. I hate drama, but at the same time nothing bothers me more than when life’s perfect. And that’s the sick part. I just love a challenge, whether it’s a relationship, my career, clothing…Like, getting dressed, I want to pick the most bizare pair of shorts so I can figure out how to make it look right, or work an outfit that will make people go, “What the hell is she wearing?” You know, whatever it is, a challenge is just thrilling for me.

Glamour: You said that as a girl, when you stuff going on with your family, you would sing along to Destiny’s Child and Mariah albums. What else?
Rihanna: Celine Dion, Whitney Houston.

Glamour: Now all these impressionable young girls are singing your songs. Which do you hope they’re singing?
Rihanna: “Fire Bomb” is one of my favorite songs. It kills me I never released it as a single. It’s not the most postive message; it’s just honest. It’s about wanting revenge, because you just feel like no one can understand what you’re feeling unless they burn the way you burned. And that was at a time when I didn’t really want to be angry but I couldn’t help it, and “Fire Bomb” was like that therapeutic song for me.

Glamour: In the last two albums, you’re open about how messy life gets.
Rihanna: I think honesty is the ultimate liberation in life. People want to shy away from the truth and keep sweeping it under the rug. But after a while, you just pick up the rug and there’s way too much dirt, so you might as well just be up front about it. If you just face it today, then tommorow you can move on to something else. It just reminds me of 8 Mile, where Eminem rapped every dis they could say about him. It gives you that freedom, because what are they going to say about you now?

Glamour: In the “S&M” video, there are hateful words coming across the screen.
Rihanna: That was me mking fun of those absurd things that I’ve heard and read about myself.

Glamour: One of those words is slut. That seems like something teenaged girls can identify with – how if a woman has sex and it gets gossiped about, she’s suddenly a slut.
Rihanna: I wouldn’t want to promote girls having sex. But the reality is, it’s happening, and they’re just a little too young to understand how careful they need to be. That’s a big battle with me, because I’m 23, and a lot of my fans are eight years younger than I am, so there’s a bit of a tug-of-war there. I want to set the right example and at the the same time, live my life. So I kind of let go of that and was just really honest. I feel like pop stars can’t be rockstar anymore, because they have to be just role models., and it takes the fun out of it for everyone, because we just want to have with art.

Glamour: The head of XL Recordings, Richard Russel, who is also Adele’s boss, called music videos like “S&M” “faux porn”.
Rihanna: [Laughs.] Faux Pron? Has he ever seen porn? If he feels liek that, thanks. I mean, s–t, I’ll take it as a compliment. That was just a smoch on the cheek, but if he got a boner? Then you’re welcome.

Glamour: Ha! Let’s break your song “S&M” down. “Sticks and Stone may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me”
Rihanna: I’m just making fun of blogs and rumors. It used to really bother me. Now it’s like “They called me a whore on that site yesterday, and today they’re calling me an idiot — not so bad!” It’s not acceptable, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Glamour: Ok, that’s the metaphor, on the other level, you’re also straight-up talking about sex. What’s the literal meaning to you? Do you like dominant guys?
Rihanna: I absolutely do prefer a dominant guy. I play a very dominant role in my life, in every other aspect of it. And I like to feel like a lady still, at some point. I feel like that’s the time when a guy really gets to be the man, and I get to be the woman. And if I’m being a man in the bedroom too, there’s nothing really in it for me.

Glamour: As a role model, is that hard to say?
Rihanna: Yeah it is, but here I am speaking as 23-year-old, saying that I engage in adult behavior.

Glamour: In your 2009 interview with Glamour, you said you didn’t realize how much your decision might affect your fans.
Rihanna: It was definitely a big wake-up call to realize the impact I had on woman. It also made me feel a lot close to them. We live different lives, but we have a lot of the same expereiences. They trust the things I say because it’s coming from a peer, as opposed to be a parent. And sometimes you have to put on your role model hat…They know you’re just as rebellious as they are, so if you say something wrong, they know it’s wrong for sure.

Glamour: I was trying to understand the difference between Gaga’s Little Monsters and the Rihanna Navy — the names you gave your fan bases. She calls herself the Mother Monster. I can’t ever see you saying you’re the mother figure.
Rihanna: No because I don’t look at them as followers under myself. We’re peers. They’re right here with me. I need them more than they need me. I need their feedback, their honesty, their support. Without that, it’s pointless. I respect them very much.

Glamour: I interviewed actor Taylor Kitsch, and he said you were so badass in Battleship, doing your own stunts, “annihilating everything in your way.”
Rihanna: That does make me sound badass. Taylor is great. I didn’t know anything about acting: I was just going in there, fingers crossed. And Peter Berg is awesome. He’s a psycho, which works for me. I get along well with psychos. I want to do more films, for sure.

Glamour: Let’s talk about competition. There’s a tight pack, right?
Rihanna: There is a pack. There’s Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyonce..who else? There’s Ke$ha defintely. Woman are definitely dominating music right now, and that’s because we are competitive beings. I feel like music hasn’t been this exiciting in awhile.

Glamour: You and Katy Perry are friends, right? you there her bachelorette party when she married Russel Brand. And you’re competing. Are you “frenemies”?
Rihanna: No [Laughs.] Katy is like, the shit. Honestly, I really love the girl. And when I met her, it was at a time when I wasn’t really talking to females besides the women I work with and my best friend. I’ve always been like that, my whole teenage life, till now.

Glamour: Your friends are mostly men?
Rihanna: All my friends are guys, to be honest. But when I met her, it was such a breath of fresh air. I just couldn’t believe this chick had no edit button. She was everything I wanted to be at that time, because I was still editing myself and not that open. My whole life changed a couple years ago, and that’s when I left my guard down completely…But Katy and Lady Gaga came out of the gate the way they think, the way they wanna dress, the way they wanna speak.

Glamour: You’re competitive with them, but there’s respect in the game.
Rihanna: Absolutely. I would only look at them as competition if I really admire them. These women are real competition.

Special thanks to @i_love_RiRi and Fluorescent from RihannaForums.com.

Rihanna answers fans questions on the set of Glamour Magazine photoshoot

Rodrigo — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:01:26 +0000

More pictures from Glamour Magazine

Natalie — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:43:36 +0000

Rihanna on hating drama…and perfection…

“I hate drama. But at the same time, nothing bothers me more than when life’s perfect. And that’s the sick part. I just love a challenge, whether it’s a relationship, my career, clothing…”

Rihanna on her attention-getting sense of style…

“Getting dressed, I want to pick the most bizarre pair of shorts so I can figure out how to make it look right, or work an outfit that will make people go, “What the hell is she wearing?”

Rihanna on dealing with how messy life can get…

“I think honesty is the ultimate liberation in life. People want to shy away from the truth and keep sweeping it under the rug. But after a while, you pick up the rug and there’s just way too much dirt, so you might as well just be up front about it.”

Rihanna on being a role model for young girls…

“In the beginning of my career, it was really strict for me. I couldn’t wear pink or red lipstick; it was just bizarre. We had a young fan base, and they were trying to keep me fresh. But I just really wanted to be myself. I wanted to be sassy, the attitude, all these things that I am.”

Rihanna on being a role model for young girls…

“I want to set the right example and, at the same time, live my life….I feel like pop stars can’t be rock stars anymore because they have to be role models, and it takes the fun out of it for us, because we just want to have fun with art.”

Rihanna on liking dominant guys in the bedroom…

“I play a very dominant role in my life, in every aspect of it. And I like to feel like a lady still, at some point. I feel like that’s the time when a guy really gets to be a man, and I get to be a woman. And if I’m being a man in the bedroom too, there’s nothing really in it for me.”

Rihanna on her fellow female musicians…

“There’s a pack. It’s me, Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyoncé…who else? Ke$ha, for sure. Women are definitely dominating music right now, and that’s because we are competitive beings. I feel like music hasn’t been this exciting in a while.”

Rihanna on her friendship with Katy Perry…

“All my friends are guys, to be completely honest. But when I met her, it was such a breath of fresh air. I just couldn’t believe this chick had no edit button…. Katy and Lady Gaga came out of the gate exactly the way they think, the way they wanna dress, the way they wanna speak.”

Credit: Glamour

Rihanna on the cover of Glamour

Natalie — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:54:02 +0000

Rihanna is the latest Glamour covergirl! Our girl is featured in the September issue of the magazine looking fabulous.