rihanna history 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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• Introduction

Music career: A Girl Like Me and Good Girl Gone Bad

Later works: rated r , talk that talk , and unapologetic, other activities: acting and fenty beauty, personal life.

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Rihanna (born February 20, 1988, St. Michael parish, Barbados) is a Barbadian pop and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer who became a worldwide star in the early 21st century. She is known for her distinctive and versatile voice and for her fashionable appearance. She is also known for her beauty and fashion lines.

Fenty grew up in Barbados with a Barbadian father and a Guyanese mother. As a child, she listened to Caribbean music , such as reggae , as well as American hip-hop and R&B. She especially enjoyed singing and won a high-school talent show with a rendition of a Mariah Carey song. About the same time, she started a girl group with two friends, and in 2004 she attracted the attention of Evan Rogers, an American record producer. He helped Fenty record a demo that led to an audition with the rapper Jay-Z , who at the time headed the Def Jam record label, and he soon signed the budding vocalist. For her professional career, she adopted her middle name, Rihanna.

With the effervescent dancehall -inflected single “Pon de Replay” (2005), Rihanna immediately captured an international audience. The song’s success buoyed sales for her debut full-length recording, Music of the Sun (2005), on which conventional R&B ballads shared space with Caribbean-flavored dance-pop that showcased her melodious Barbadian lilt. Rihanna soon followed with the album A Girl Like Me (2006), featuring the up-tempo club-oriented “S.O.S.” The song, which was built around a sample of Soft Cell ’s 1981 new-wave hit “Tainted Love,” became Rihanna’s first to top the Billboard singles chart.

For Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), Rihanna sought to transform her youthful image. With the assistance of such high-profile collaborators as Timbaland and Justin Timberlake , she abandoned the tropical rhythms that had adorned her first two albums and recorded a collection of sleek R&B that presented her as a fiercely independent and rebellious woman. (She also unveiled a spiky asymmetrical hairstyle.) The gambit paid off, as the album sold several million copies worldwide, and its anthemic lead single, “ Umbrella,” featuring an introductory rap from Jay-Z, became one of the year’s biggest hits and earned Rihanna a Grammy Award .

In early 2009 Rihanna was beaten by her boyfriend, fellow R&B star Chris Brown , in an incident that was widely covered by tabloid news and gossip blogs. Following their separation, he was convicted of assault. The album that followed later that year, Rated R , much of which she cowrote, was marked by icily stark production and brooding lyrics that touched on revenge. Although her sales declined somewhat, she scored another major hit with “Rude Boy.” Rihanna returned to less-portentous fare on the dance-friendly Loud (2010). In early 2011 the album’s sexually provocative single “S&M” became her 10th number one Billboard hit—which made her, at age 23, the youngest artist ever to reach that milestone. Included in the total were prominent collaborations with hip-hop artists T.I. and Eminem that appeared on albums of theirs; many felt her vocals on the latter’s “Love the Way You Lie” (2010) lent resonance to the song’s depiction of an abusive relationship.

Rihanna maintained a steely and seductive persona on the albums Talk That Talk (2011), which produced the infectious international hit “We Found Love,” and Unapologetic (2012), which was anchored by the starry-eyed “Diamonds.” The latter release also controversially featured a duet with Brown, with whom she rekindled her relationship for a brief time. Her eighth studio album, Anti , was released in 2016. Rihanna began working on a new record, but the project was delayed as she took a break from music. However, she later cowrote and performed “Lift Me Up” for the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). For her work on the single, Rihanna received her first Academy Award nomination, for best original song. In 2023 she returned to the stage for the first time in some four years, performing at the Super Bowl halftime show.

In addition to her musical career, Rihanna acted in the movies Battleship (2012) and This Is the End (2013). She also voiced one of the main characters in the animated adventure Home (2015). Rihanna later appeared as a hacker in Ocean’s 8 (2018), a female-driven reboot of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise from the early 2000s. In 2019 she starred with Donald Glover in the musical Guava Island ; it premiered at the Coachella Valley Festival before streaming on Amazon .

After collaborating on several cosmetics collections in the early 2010s, Rihanna launched her own line, Fenty Beauty, in 2017. The brand was enthusiastically embraced by fans and was praised for its inclusivity in offering 40 different shades of foundation. She later launched (2018) Savage X Fenty, a clothing line of lingerie and loungewear. In 2019 it was announced that Rihanna was partnering with LVMH Moët Hennessy—Louis Vuitton to create the fashion line Fenty. She thereby became the first woman of color to head a fashion house at LVMH, which was the largest luxury-products company in the world. Fenty’s first collection was released later that year. However, the line struggled, and in 2021 it was announced that Fenty was being paused “pending better conditions.”

Rihanna’s personal life attracted intense media attention. Her tumultuous relationship with Brown, especially the 2009 domestic violence incident, was fodder for the tabloids. She later dated Canadian rapper Drake . In 2021 it was confirmed that Rihanna was in a relationship with rapper A$AP Rocky. The couple welcomed a baby boy the following year. In 2023 Rihanna revealed she was again pregnant by performing at the Super Bowl halftime show with a visible baby bump; her representatives subsequently confirmed that the singer was expecting her second child. In August that year Rihanna gave birth to her second son.

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 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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• Born February 20 , 1988 · Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados
• Birth name Robyn Rihanna Fenty
• The Caribbean Queen
• The Barbados Babe
• The Bajan Beauty
• The Princess of Pop
• The Princess of R&B
• Height 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
• Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 in Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados to Monica Braithwaite, an accountant & Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor. Her mother is Afro-Guyanese and her father is of Afro-Barbadian and British Isles ancestry. Rihanna lived the life of a normal island girl going to Combermere, a top sixth form school. Rihanna won numerous beauty pageants and performed Mariah Carey 's single, Hero in a school talent show. Her life changed forever when one of her friends introduced her to Evan Rodgers, a producer from New York who was in Barbados for a vacation with his wife, who is a native. Rodgers arranged for her to go to New York to meet Jay-Z , CEO of Def Jam Records. He heard her sing and knew she was going to be incredibly successful. She was age 16 when she was signed to Def Jam. Since then, she's amassed phenomenal success. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Loud_Child
• Children RZA Athelston Mayers Riot Rose Mayers
• Parents Monica Braithwaite Ronald Fenty
• Relatives Reginald Leslie Forde (Grandparent) Betty Fenty (Grandparent) Rorrey Fenty (Sibling) Rajad Fenty (Sibling)
• Leather outfits and revealing outfits
• Ever changing hairstyles
• Her many tattoos
• Strong Bajan accent
• Mezzo-soprano vocals
• 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.
• She's the highest paid female celebrity to be seated front row at fashion shows. She's paid an estimated $100,000, followed by Beyoncé , who is estimated at $80,000.
• Was tagged "The Digital Download Queen" on account of her songs being downloaded over 75,000,000 times combined.
• While filming a music video for her song "We Found Love" in Ireland, the farmer whose land was borrowed as a setting for the video, asked the crew to stop filming and leave the land after he objected to Rihanna's revealing outfits and state of undress, which he deemed as "inappropriate".
• Was signed to Def Jam Records at age 16.
• 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.
• [on Fashion] Wear the clothes. Don't let them wear you.
• [on Jesse Williams ] Jesse, who's in my music video for "Russian Roulette", is so hot!
• I love flirting at the moment. I'm single and I'm enjoying my freedom. But I don't give my phone number out that often. But if I'm dating, I check the boy from the top to the bottom.
• [on what a man needs to impress her] He has to be good in bed and the size matters. You know what I mean? The inner beauty counts as well, but without a toy it doesn't make it fun.

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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.

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B orn Robyn Rihanna Fenty, February 20, 1988, in St. Michael’s Parish, Barbados; daughter of Ronald (a warehouse supervisor) and Monica (an accountant and boutique owner) Fenty.

Addresses: Contact —Def Jam Recordings, 825 8th Ave., New York , NY 10019. Home —LosAngeles, CA.

S igned with Def Jam Recordings, c. 2004; released first album, Music of the Sun, 2005; made first film appearance, a cameo in Bring It On: All or Nothing, 2006; released second album, A Girl Like Me, 2006; released third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, 2007.

Awards: Female breakout artist and choice R&B artist, Teen Choice Awards, 2006; female artist of the year, female Hot 100 artist of the year, and pop 100 artist of the year, Billboard Music Awards, 2006; best R&B artist, MTV Europe Music Awards, 2006; best new artist, song of the year for “Pon de Replay,” best dance single for “Pon de Replay,” album of the year for Music of the Sun, entertainer of the year, Barbados Music Awards, 2006; best new video artist, MTV Video Music Awards Japan, 2006; album of the year for A Girl Like Me, best entertainer of the year, best female entertainer of the year, best selling recording artist, Barbados Music Awards, 2007; top 25 entertainers of the year, Entertainment Weekly, 2007; favorite female artist, soul/R&B, American Music Awards, 2007; bestselling pop female artist, world’s bestselling R&B artist, World Music Awards, 2007; monster single of the year, for “Umbrella” with Jay-Z, MTV Video Music Awards, 2007; soul video of the year, VH1, 2007; pop/R&B artist of the year, best pop/R&B single for “Don’t Stop the Music,” best female music video for “Shut Up and Drive,” song of the year for “Umbrella,” album of the year for Good Girl Gone Bad, female entertainer of the year, people’s choice entertainer of the year, Barbados Music Awards, 2008; Grammy Award for best rap/sung collaboration, Recording Academy, for “Umbrella,” shared with Jay-Z, 2008; favorite R&B song, for “Shut up and Drive,” People’s Choice Awards, 2008.

B arbados-born songstress Rihanna hit the air-waves in 2005 with her debut album, Music of the Sun, which spawned the reggae-tinged dance-hall hit “Pon de Replay.” Some industry insiders dismissed her as a one-hit wonder, but Rihanna proved them wrong. Her second album, released eight months after the first, included the No. 1 hit “S.O.S.” In 2007, she followed with the hit single “Umbrella,” which spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and a record-setting ten weeks atop the United Kingdom (U.K.) singles charts. Rihanna went on to win a Grammy for the song, making her the first woman from Barbados to earn such an honor. Having released three albums and a handful of top 10 hits by the age of 19, Rihanna has proved she is well on her way to becoming the new reigning diva of R&B.

Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael’s Parish, Barbados. Her mother, Monica, hails from Guyana and is an accountant-turned-boutique owner. Her father, Ronald, is a Barbadian and has worked as a warehouse supervisor. Growing up, Rihanna watched her father struggle with addiction as he battled crack, marijuana, and alcohol. Her parents were separated for long periods of time and finally divorced when Rihanna was a teen. “My mom would take us to see him, and he would be in the worst condition,” Rihanna told Allure ’s Brooke Hauser. “She stopped taking us because she didn’t want us to see him like that.” Rihanna’s mother worked long hours to support the family, leaving Rihanna, the oldest, in charge of the household and responsible for her brothers Rajad and Rorrey. Rihanna’s father has since beaten his addictions and has accompanied Rihanna on tour.

Rihanna has been singing nearly all of her life. As a child she honed her skills in the shower, crooning Whitney Houston , Mariah Carey , and Celine Dion ballads from the steamy comfort of the bathroom. Rihanna sang so loud and enthusiastically that the neighbors complained. By her early teens, Rihanna had joined an all-girl music group. “Growing up, I always sang,” Rihanna told Derek Paiva, an entertainment writer for the Honolulu Advertiser. “But no one ever was really pushing me to do it. It was something that I wanted to do. So I developed a personal passion for it, fell in love with music, and developed my own taste and style.” Rihanna won a high school talent show with a rendition of Mariah Carey ’s “Hero.”

These days, Rihanna enjoys dressing like a sleek and sexy model. She is also a spokeswoman for CoverGirl cosmetics. Growing up, though, she described herself as a tomboy. With 13 male cousins and two younger brothers, Rihanna and a lone female cousin worked hard to be accepted among the boys, who continually tried to run them off. “We wanted to do what they did,” Rihanna told the Advertiser. “We wanted to climb trees. We wanted to fight. We wanted to catch animals . We had to defend ourselves a lot!”

Rihanna had trouble at school, where kids shunned her and teased her because her brown skin was lighter than theirs. Rihanna inherited a lighter, West Indian complexion from her Barbadian father—she also has a set of glass-green eyes. “People hated me because I’m fair in complexion,” she told Entertainment Weekly ’s Margeaux Watson. “I had to develop a thick skin because they would call me white.”

Rihanna’s career enjoyed a jump start in 2003 when a friend helped orchestrate a meeting with U.S. songwriter and producer Evan Rogers, who was vacationing in Barbados. Rogers has worked with such stars as Christina Aguilera , Kelly Clarkson, and Donny Osmond . After hearing about Rihanna, Rogers summoned her to come sing in his hotel room. She chose to perform the Destiny’s Child’s hit “Emotion.” Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Rogers described how Rihanna captured his attention the moment she walked into the room. “She carried herself like a star even when she was 15. But the killer was when she opened her mouth to sing. She was a little rough around the edges, but she had this edge to her voice.” Impressed, Rogers invited Rihanna to fly to the United States to make a demo with him.

They recorded a four-track demo, which included a version of “Pon de Replay.” Rogers distributed the demo and it fell into the hands of Jay-Z, head of Def Jam Recordings. After hearing the demo, Jay-Z called Rihanna in Barbados and summoned her for an audition. After arriving in the United States , Rihanna went into Jay-Z’s office and belted out a few tunes a cappella . Within 12 hours, she had signed a deal with the label.

Soon, Rihanna began working on her first album, which was produced by Rogers and his longtime business partner Carl Sturken. In August of 2005, 17year-old Rihanna released Music of the Sun, which featured a set of strong dance tunes highlighting her vocals. The album peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, buoyed by the success of the hypnotically catchy dance tune “Pon de Replay,” the first single Rihanna released. “Pon de Replay” spent 27 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peak-ing at No. 2. Speaking to the Honolulu Advertiser, Rihanna noted that she initially shied away from recording the song. “I thought it sounded like a nursery rhyme,” she said. “It didn’t sound like singing.” Rihanna said it was such a different style she was not immediately drawn to it, but once she started recording she realized the song had an incredible vibe.

In April of 2006—just eight months after the release of her debut album—Rihanna rolled out a second, titled AGirl Like Me. The album included the electro-funk breakout hit “S.O.S.,” which topped both the U.S. and Australian charts. The song borrowed the drum beat, bass line, and synthesizer loop from the 1980s hit “Tainted Love.” Christina Milian was supposed to record the song, but she turned it down because she thought the song had too much of a pop flare for a true R&B singer; however, Rihanna liked the song, particularly because it expressed more mature emotions than she had explored in her previous album. “‘S.O.S.’ talks about being rescued from a crazy feeling, calling out for help,” Rihanna told Jet. “You know like when you have a huge crush on a guy, come rescue me from feeling this crazy.”

The album also included a slow, piano-driven ballad, “Unfaithful,” which hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following the album’s release, Rihanna embarked on a promotional tour through the United States, Europe, and Canada. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Top 200, was certified platinum and earned Rihanna a bevy of awards in 2006, including female artist of the year at the Billboard Music Awards.

True to form, Rihanna did not take much of a break between albums and in June of 2007 released a third, Good Girl Gone Bad. Speaking to Margeaux Watson of EW.com, Rihanna said that she inherited a strong work ethic from her mother, whom she described as a workaholic: “If she took a week off from work, she got so miserable at home.” Rihanna said that she is the same way—she gets antsy whenever she has free time. “When I take a break I get really fidg-ety and restless and I wanna get back to work . But also, I am very passionate about what I do. I love making music. I love the process of it. And every time, I like to switch it up a little bit and make it different.”

For certain, Good Girl Gone Bad makes a departure from the youthful, party-girl innocence articulated on her first two albums. Rihanna was quite young when the first two albums came out and she relied on Rogers and Def Jam executives to make most of the decisions. With this third album, Rihanna took more ownership and sought to leave her innocent, good-girl image behind. Rihanna recorded more adult-themed songs and reworked her image in an effort to separate herself from the pack. The night before the photo shoot for the cover of Good Girl Gone Bad, Rihanna persuaded her hairstylist to come to her LosAngeles hotel room and chop off her long, brown locks to create a blunt, inverted bob, which she dyed jet black.

The changes went beyond looks. For this album, Rihanna tapped a large number of established producers and songwriters. Justin Timberlake and Ne-Yo earned songwriting credits, while Timbaland, Stargate, and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart all earned producer credits, along with Rogers and Sturken. The album’s lead single, “Umbrella,” features Jay-Z on accompanying vocals. The song simultaneously topped the Hot 100, Pop 100, and Hot Digital Songs charts. In sum, more than 2.2 million music listeners have downloaded the song, which set a record for digital downloads in a debut week. The song—about the strength of enduring relationships—was a hit around the globe, spending 595 weeks on 20 different charts. During the 17th week of 2007, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed upon charts around the world, exiting after the 22nd week of 2008 when it sat atop the Germany Singles Top 100 before slipping off the charts. The single received rave reviews in Europe. It topped the U.K. singles charts for ten consecutive weeks, making it the longest-running U.K. chart-topper of the 21st century. The album included several other hits, such as “Shut Up and Drive,” “Hate That I Love You,” and “Take a Bow,” the latter of which topped the Billboard Hot 100.

Despite Rihanna’s string of successes, she did not realize her stardom potential until after “Umbrella” created such a buzz. “It really overwhelmed me when ‘Umbrella’ was No. 1 for so many weeks all over the world, not only in America, and broke records and made history,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “‘Umbrella’ just went way ahead of me and where my mind was a lot quicker and earlier than I expected it to.” Rihanna went on to win a Grammy for the song.

Jay-Z told Entertainment Weekly that he was thrilled with Rihanna’s third album and the control she exerted over its creation. “She’s found her voice. That’s the best thing for any label—to have an artist step in and take control of their own career. She’s left the nest.”

With two platinum albums under her belt, Rihanna has traveled a long way from her working-class island origins. As her star continues to rise, advertisers are knocking on her door, hoping to sign her for promotions. Rihanna became the spokeswoman for Gillette’s Venus Breeze razors, with Gillette insuring her legs for $1 million. In addition, she has a partnership with CoverGirl. When Good Girl Gone Bad was released, the first 800,000 copies included coupons for Wetslicks Fruit Spritzers.

When Rihanna is not busy working, the tattooed beauty enjoys playing Guitar Hero on her Xbox. Rihanna has a set of tiny star tattoos on her neck, a treble clef on her ankle, and a Sanskrit prayer on her hip. Among her circle of friends, Rihanna is known as the mischievous prankster. One favorite trick includes squeezing lemon juice into friends’ mouths as they sleep. Most friends still call her Ro-byn, the name she used while growing up.

As for the future, Rihanna hopes to break into film. She made a cameo in 2006’s Bring It On: All or Nothing. Whether that happens or not, Rihanna is sure that a bright future awaits her. She said she believes her success is due to becoming more comfortable with expressing her true self. “Some people never figure themselves out, and that’s sad,” she told Cosmopolitan ’s Monica Corcoran. “I’m still learning who I am, but I’m not scared to be myself anymore.”

Selected Recordings

Music of the Sun, Def Jam, 2005.

A Girl Like Me, Def Jam, 2006.

Good Girl Gone Bad, Def Jam, 2007.

“If It’s Lovin’ That You Want,” Def Jam, 2005.

“Pon de Replay,” Def Jam, 2005.

“S.O.S.,” Def Jam, 2006.

“Unfaithful,” Def Jam, 2006.

“Don’t Stop the Music,” Def Jam, 2007.

“Hate That I Love You,” Def Jam, 2007.

“Shut Up and Drive,” Def Jam, 2007. (Featuring Jay-Z) “Umbrella,” Def Jam, 2007.

“Take A Bow,” Def Jam, 2008.

Periodicals

Allure, January 1, 2008, p. 146.

Billboard, May 12, 2007, pp. 24-27.

Cosmopolitan, March 2008, pp. 46-49.

Entertainment Weekly, June 29, 2007, pp. 81-83; November 30, 2007, pp. 82-83.

Jet, May 22, 2006, p. 35.

Music Week, July 28, 2007, p. 4.

“Caribbean Queen,” Entertainment Weekly, http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20043298.tif,00.html (May 9, 2008).

“18 Things You Need to Know About Rihanna,” Honolulu Advertiser, http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Sep/15/en/FP60915030.tif3.html (April 13, 2008).

“Rihanna Has Her Day in the Sun,” USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2005-08-01-otv-rihanna_x.htm (May 18, 2008).

—Lisa Frick

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Rihanna is the rare rhythm and blues (R&B) diva to emerge from the Caribbean world. Though she had made two previous albums, the Barbadian singer debuted a glamorous new look in the spring of 2007 as her latest single, "Umbrella," began to climb the charts. By late summer "Umbrella" was on the verge of becoming the most successful single of the entire year. Craig McLean, a writer for the Daily Telegraph, called it "a brilliant pop song, propulsive and sinuous…. Already it is feeling like a defining song of 2007."

Born on February 20, 1988, as Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Rihanna grew up in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. Her father, Ronald, was a native of the island, and her mother, Monica, was originally from Guyana, a nation on the northeastern coastline of South America . Along with two younger brothers, Rihanna saw her parents' marriage suffer because of the crack-cocaine addition her father developed. "I knew that my mom and dad would argue when there was foil paper with an ashtray," Rihanna recalled in an interview with Grant Rollings for the Sun, a British tabloid. "He would just go into the bathroom all the time. I didn't know what it was."

Monica struggled to support her family by work in the financial-services industry, but Rihanna was fortunate to attend one of the top schools in Barbados, the Combermere School, founded in 1695. She loved to sing at an early age and formed a teen group, called Contrast, with some friends. In 2004, the year she turned sixteen, she won the title of Miss Combermere, though she had been a self-confessed tomboy who cared little about makeup or clothes until that point. Her break into show business came when producer/songwriter Evan Rogers came to Barbados for a vacation with his wife; the mother of a friend of Rihanna's knew Rogers's wife from their school days together, and the mother arranged an introduction. Rogers and his business partner, Carl Sturken, were responsible for making stars out of Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera , N'Sync, and several other top pop acts. Rihanna sang for Evans one of her favorite songs, Mariah Carey 's "Hero," followed by the Destiny's Child's track "Emotions." He was impressed enough to sign her to his company, Syndicated Rhythm Productions (SRP), and arrange for her to come to New York City to cut a demo record. Rogers and his wife assured Monica Fenty that Rihanna would stay at their home and would be watched over as if she was their own daughter.

The next stop on Rihanna's path to stardom came after SRP contacted Jay-Z, the rapper turned mogul who cofounded Roc-A-Feller Records and who had recently become president and chief executive officer of Def Jam Records. Rihanna was invited to audition in person for Jay-Z in his office, "and that's when I really got nervous," she told Sylvia Patterson in the London Observer . "I was like: ‘Oh God, he's right there, I can't look, I can't look, I can't look!’ I remember being extremely quiet. I was very shy. I was cold the entire time. I had butterflies." The tryout was a success, however, and she was signed to Def Jam, which released her debut album, Music of the Sun, in August of 2005. Capitalizing on her West Indian roots, the label positioned the teen as a fresh new voice that merged rap and Caribbean rhythms, which were showcased in the first single released from the album, "Pon de Replay," a dancehall reggae that peaked at number two on the U.S. and British charts.

Subsequent singles from Music of the Sun were less successful, but Rihanna's enticing good looks—statuesque and with green eyes—helped her land lucrative endorsement contracts with Nike, Clinique, and J. C. Penney that opened the door to unique cross-marketing deals. In April of 2006 her second album, A Girl Like Me, was released, and its first single, "SOS," reached number one on Billboard 's Hot 100 chart thanks to a tie-in with Nike. Another release further blurred the line between art and commerce: "Just Be Happy," a song written for her by African-American/Chinese-American rapper Ne-Yo, was available only on her Web site as a part of a special promotional campaign with Clinique and its fragrance, Happy.

Both Ne-Yo and Jay-Z appeared on Rihanna's third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, which was released in June of 2007. Its first single was "Umbrella" and had already caused a stir that spring for marking the debut of a new, more grown-up look for the singer. The song wound up spending ten weeks at the number-one spot on the British charts, the longest run for a female artist there since Whitney Houston more than a decade earlier. It also reached number one on the U.S. and European charts, it won MTV's Monster Single of the Year Video honors in September, and its lavishly produced video won Video of the Year at the same ceremony. For part of it, a nude Rihanna was coated in silver paint and then filmed inside a special black box. "The body paint was really oily," she told Elizabeth Sanchez in Men's Fitness about the experience. "I couldn't wait to get it off my face. That was the worst part about it—getting it off. I was in the shower for two and a half hours!… Days after, I still had some in my hair, ears, even my belly button ."

Good Girl Gone Bad sold well and secured Rihanna's place as a new R&B/pop powerhouse. "The title of the album represents my liberation," she told Sanchez. "Being able to break out of the innocent image I was forced into. Now I'm just being me." World-famous before she was twenty years old, the singer has been romantically linked to musicians Omarion, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake , along with actors Shia LaBeouf and Josh Hartnett. She lives in Los Angeles , and she admitted to Patterson that fame had its drawbacks. "With success has come a lotta great stuff, but there's cons, too," she reflected. "Who to trust is a huge one. I always have to keep my guard up. A lot. I'm dealing with fake people. All the time. So I just keep my guard up."

At a Glance …

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in Bridgetown, St. Michael's Parish, Barbados; daughter of Ronald and Monica Fenty.

Career: Signed to Syndicated Rhythm Productions, c. 2004; signed with Def Jam Records; made television acting debut in Las Vegas , 2005; has endorsement deals with Nike, J. C. Penney , Clinique, and CoverGirl.

Awards: Monster Single of the Year and Video of the Year, MTV Music Video Awards, both 2007, for "Umbrella."

Addresses: Agent— Glenn Gulino, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York , NY 10019.

Selected discography

"Pon de Replay," 2005.

"SOS," 2006.

"Unfaithful," 2006.

"Umbrella," 2007.

"Don't Stop the Music," 2007.

Daily Telegraph (London, England), May 31, 2007.

Men's Fitness, August 2007.

New York Times, June 4, 2007.

Observer (London, England), August 26, 2007.

Sun (London, England), June 15, 2007.

Times (London, England), January 6, 2007.

—Carol Brennan

" Rihanna . " Contemporary Black Biography . . Encyclopedia.com. 14 Jun. 2024 < https://www.encyclopedia.com > .

"Rihanna ." Contemporary Black Biography . . Encyclopedia.com. (June 14, 2024). https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/rihanna-0

"Rihanna ." Contemporary Black Biography . . Retrieved June 14, 2024 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/rihanna-0

Some people seem to have all the luck. And then there are those fortunate few who not only have all the luck, but the talent to go along with it. Rising dance-pop diva Rihanna has both luck and talent, and she stands poised to reign supreme on the pop charts. Back-to-back summer hits "Pon de Replay" (2005) and "S.O.S." (2006) catapulted her from a young singer in Barbados to worldwide star status, and her fusion of R&B, hip hop, and reggae have helped her stand out among other pop stars.

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Rihanna grew up in the parish of St. Michael on the island of Barbados. Although she is living out her dream now as a professional singer, Rihanna did not ever imagine she would hear her songs on the radio. She revealed in a Boston Globe profile, "I would sing in the mirror, holding a brush to my mouth like it was a microphone." And even though the neighbors would complain about her loud singing, she kept at it. Without any professional singing experience, her first standout moment occurred when she was in high school and won a talent contest singing Mariah Carey 's "Hero." Along with Carey, Rihanna counts Whitney Houston and Beyoncé as her musical idols.

In December of 2003, while still a high school student, Rihanna was introduced to producer Evan Rogers through a mutual friend. Rogers, who had worked with Christina Aguilera , Jessica Simpson , Ruben Studdar, and Kelly Clarkson, was on vacation with his wife, Jackie, a native of Barbados, when he heard Rihanna sing. Rogers was impressed, and flew her to New York to record a demo. Over the next year Rihanna worked on her demo with Rogers and his partner Carl Sturken, who ran Syndicated Rhythm Productions. They began circulating the demo, which included the single "Pon de Replay." Def Jam label president and CEO Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, was the first and last label exec to get a sit-down with Rihanna. After an impressive audition at Jay-Z's office, Executive Vice President Jay Brown recalled in the Globe , "I wanted an artist who could be developed. When I knew she could sing, I knew I could work with her." After cancelling a set of meetings with other labels, Rihanna, who was only 16 years old, literally signed with Def Jam on the spot, with lawyers completing the contract by 3:00 A.M.

Shortly after signing with Def Jam, Rihanna's career kicked into overdrive and by May of 2005 she had released her first single, "Pon de Replay." It didn't take long for the infectious rhythms of this breakout summer hit to top the charts and score as a huge dancehall hit. Shortly after its release, Sirius Satellite Radio Hip Hop musical director Geronimo predicted that "Pon de Replay" would become the summer's big hit. In fact, only Mariah Carey 's "We Belong Together" beat out "Pon de Replay" for the number one spot on Billboard 's chart.

When her first CD, Music of the Sun , came out in August it debuted at number ten on the charts. Amid an avalanche of pop CDs, Music of the Sun managed to earn respectable praise for Rihanna's "above-average" singing. Rolling Stone critic Jason Birchmeier noted, "As with most albums of this ilk, Music of the Sun descends into faceless slow jams after a while … but thankfully it picks up the pace toward the end of its 13-song run and concludes on a fun note, with a remix of "Pon de Replay" featuring Elephant Man . The result is one of the more engaging urban dance-pop albums of the year."

In 2005 Rihanna took to the road with Gwen Stefani, where she was schooled in rock, an influence that appeared on her 2006 CD A Girl Like Me on the track "Kisses Don't Lie," which blends a rock beat with Caribbean rhythms. On her website Rihanna noted, "Coming from Barbados, I really hadn't heard that much rock music . Touring with Gwen changes my perspective. So, when I was discussing this project with L.A. Reid, Chairman of Island Def Jam Records, I made sure to say I want to experiment with some rock." The album, which was executive produced by Jay-Z, is pure pop, with two runaway hits, "S.O.S" and "Unfaithful." Most critics have credited Rihanna with avoiding a sophomore slump through clever and ambitious songs that continue to show the singer's promise. Although still only 18 years old, Rihanna shows maturity, both in her personal life and in her music. She told London Guardian reporter Amina Taylor, "My mom raised me to be a child and know my place but also to think like a woman…. So fortunately I am very mature for my age. In this business you have to work with the things that get thrown your way…. I don't feel under any additional pressure being young. Starting early means I get a chance to grow as a person and as an artist."

For the Record …

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 18, 1988, in St. Michael, Barbados.

Met producer Evan Rogers, 2003; made demo tape and signed with Def Jam, 2004; released single "Pon de Relay," 2005; released first CD, Music of the Sun , 2005; toured with Gwen Stefani, 2005; released hit singles "S.O.S.," 2006, and "Unfaithful," 2006; released second CD, A Girl Like Me , 2006; signed endorsement contracts with Nike and JC Penney, 2006.

Awards: MTV Video Award, Best New Artist Video, 2006; MuchMusic Video Award, Best International Video, 2006.

Addresses: Record company —Def Jam, Worldwide Plaza, 825 8th Ave., 28th Fl., New York , NY 10019. Website —Rihanna Official Website: http://www.rihanna.defjam.com.

Boston Globe , July 19, 2005; May 5, 2006.

Chicago Tribune , November 15, 2005.

Guardian (London, England), November 25, 2005.

Los Angeles Times , April 29, 2006.

New York Times , September 5, 2005; April 24, 2006.

Rolling Stone , August 18, 2005; September 8, 2005; May 26, 2006.

U.S.A. Today , August 2, 2005.

Washington Post , April 26, 2006.

"Rihanna," All Music Guide , http://www.allmusic.com (June 4, 2006).

Rihanna Official Website, http://www.rihanna.defjam.com (June 24, 2006).

" Rihanna . " Contemporary Musicians . . Encyclopedia.com. 14 Jun. 2024 < https://www.encyclopedia.com > .

"Rihanna ." Contemporary Musicians . . Encyclopedia.com. (June 14, 2024). https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/rihanna

"Rihanna ." Contemporary Musicians . . Retrieved June 14, 2024 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/rihanna

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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.

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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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Stranger Saves Homeless Man's Life With Cup of Hot Chocolate

Cian Murtagh builds homes for other people, but ironically, he doesn't have one of his own.

He grew up in state care and aged out at 18 years old, landing on the streets. He's lived there ever since. Now 30, he's spent the past 12 years just struggling to survive despite working a full-time job.

However not anymore. Thanks to the incredible kindness of strangers and the power of GoFundMe, he finally has a place to call home.

Living Life on the Streets of Dublin

Cian isn't what most people would consider the "typical" street person. He works a full-time job in construction, has no criminal record, and has never struggled with alcohol or drugs.

And yet despite this, he still can't afford the astronomical prices of rent in Dublin, which are in the top 4% of the most expensive in the world.

"Just work every day, save cash, realize you can't save the cash...it all goes to expenses, cost of living...I just expected more." Cian Murtagh via Virgin Media Television

Not only is life on the streets extremely difficult, it's also dangerous. Cian's endured countless assaults, had his ribs broken, his teeth knocked out, and his life has been threatened numerous times.

He tried to escape, moving to Cork, Ireland last year in the hope of a “fresh start,” but ended up on the city streets there too.

Eventually, it took a heavy toll. Tired of the grind and feeling hopeless, Cian hit rock bottom. After spending years searching for success and stability and never finding it, he reached his breaking point, becoming suicidal.

He stopped eating and went to die alone in a secluded area of Galtee Woods, according to GoFundMe .

And that's when a chance encounter and a cup of hot chocolate saved his life.

A Chance Encounter Changes a Homeless Man's Life

Maeve O'Brien had a chance encounter with Cian Murtagh, it saved his life.

Irish Examiner

Maeve O’Brien was driving down the road near Kilbehenny when she happened upon Cian per the Irish Examiner . She offered him a ride.

“I wasn’t even thumbing when Maeve drove by, but still she picked me up,” he said. It was the first time in years a motorist had ever stopped.

They chatted, she offered him some crackers (which he refused to eat), and eventually, she dropped him off.

The following day she saw him again, only this time it was in a missing person report on social media.

Members of the Kindness Krew, a soup-run group that frequently served hot chocolate to Cian on the streets of Cork, alerted authorities after growing concerned about his whereabouts.

Maeve heard from a neighbor that he had been spotted in the woods. So, she hopped back in the car, this time with a flask of hot chocolate hoping to find Cian. With the help of a couple of locals, she did.

Initially, he refused help.

“At that point he had stopped drinking fluids,” Maeve said. “He wanted to die. I told him that he was so loved and that we could work this out. Cian wouldn’t take the hot chocolate at first. He told me that he had no future and just wanted to slip away. The third time he accepted."

He spent the next two weeks in the hospital, severely malnourished and on the verge of death.

GoFundMe Raises Over $110,000

Man standing in a doorway wearing a hoodie.

gofundme.com/finding-a-home-for-cian

Touched by his story, members of the Kilbehenny Community Centre wanted to help. They started a GoFundMe to raise funds "to make his dream of a home come true."

Cian admits he was initially very skeptical of the GoFundMe but at the same time he "could see the kindness and niceness of all the people involved."

Kindness won. The response was overwhelming. And Cian? Is now the proud owner of his very own home.

"Hi everyone, we are absolutely thrilled to share some incredible news regarding Cian's quest for a new home. Thanks to your unwavering support and generosity, we've successfully secured a property for Cian!" the first of three updates read. "After extensive searching and negotiation, we've managed to find a home for Cian at a price of €41,000."

The remaining funds are being used for extensive renovations, including the installation of a septic tank and toilet facilities and much-needed electrical work.

As for Cian, he can't believe his dream has come true.

"I was completely shocked in a way because it seems almost like one of those cheesy American films — the protagonist has a harsh life and then it all turns around." Cian Murtagh

It took one person to save Cian's life but it took a community to change it. Cian was homeless through no fault of his own. Despite hard work and his best efforts, the harsh reality is that it wasn't enough to get him off the streets.

Sometimes, we can't do it alone.

And that's when it's so important to have a supportive community rallying behind us. By fostering collective compassion, empathy, and solidarity within our own communities we can ensure that no one has to face life's hardships alone.

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Young Girl Brings Baby Sister To Class As Their Mom Was Busy

Anyone who is a firstborn knows it comes with a lot of added responsibility. The line between parents and the eldest can be a bit fuzzy, with the oldest sibling often having to take on more than their lion's share of looking after their younger siblings.

For one 10-year-old in Thailand, she took the responsibility of big sis to a whole other level.

Instead of missing out on school to babysit her younger sibling while her mom had "business," she decided to pull double duty, bringing the one-year-old with her.

She just became a viral internet sensation.

10-Year-Old Big Sister Taking Care of Her Baby Sister in School Goes Viral

@yingggzz ไม่รู้คนเป็นครูเเบบเราจะรู้สึกยังไง เเต่สิ่งเดียวบอกกับเด็กเสมอว่า ไม่ว่ายังไงอย่าขาดเรียนนะลูก เเม่ไม่ว่างเอาน้องมาเรียนด้วยเลย เเล้วทำจริ้งงงง55555 ดีนะน้องไม่ดื้อ😆#นักเรียน #เลี้ยงน้อง #ปราจีนบุรี #ขึ้นฟีด

In an 18-second clip that has gone viral on TikTok, the student, nicknamed "Green" is sitting at her desk, diligently writing in her exercise book. It's a normal, everyday occurrence in a classroom. What isn't normal is that she is simultaneously cradling and bottle-feeding her baby sister.

Not only is the young girl completely focused on her studies, but she's also managing to look after a one-year-old in peak multi-tasking mode — which, let's face it, isn't necessarily an easy feat even for adults.

As for her sibling, she's calmly drinking her milk and at one point playfully pokes her unfazed older sister’s cheek.

According to Thai PBS World , the user who uploaded the video, @Yingggzz, is a teacher at the Ban Klong Kaem Cham School in Prachin Buri, a province in central Thailand. "Green" is her student.

The translated text overlay reads:

"She is the eldest. Her mother had business, so she had to take her younger sibling to study with her. This is better than having to miss school to look after your sister, right?’

According to the caption, Yingz is more than supportive of "Green" bringing her baby sibling to class, writing, "I'm not sure how other teachers would feel, but I always tell my students not to miss class...and she is really doing it!"

She ends it with a quip "Good thing her sister isn't naughty" and the hashtags: #students #raisingyoungersiblings.

Reaction to the Viral Video

The video quickly garnered widespread attention, going viral with over 3 million views. While some people objected to the parentification of a child, the majority of commenters praised both the girl, for not letting anything get in the way of school and the teacher, for encouraging her to attend school despite her challenging circumstances.

"😲😲😲😲 she's such a devoted student."

"This is so sweet and awesome."

"She is very tough, writing with one hand and holding her sister in the other."

"This girl will grow up strong and successful. 😄Anyone who can care for others at such a young age is destined for greatness and will be blessed forever! Best Wishes from 🇸🇬"

"Thank you to the school, teacher, for being kind to the children."

"There's nothing the eldest can't do, especially the oldest sister."

And oldest sisters everywhere are nodding their heads in agreement. Big time. Because this is so true...and even science agrees.

Eldest Daughter Syndrome is Real

@katimorton The 8 signs you have eldest daughter syndrome… #eldestdaughter #siblings #siblingcheck

Eldest daughter syndrome may not be an official diagnosis but it doesn't make it any less real. It's defined as the heavy emotional burden and responsibility first-born girls often face, including acting as "bonus parents."

And while there are benefits, such as being most likely to succeed out of any sibling type and most likely to hold leadership roles, it also brings with it a fair share of baggage — excessive worrying, anxiety, people-pleasing tendencies, and guilt (just to name a few).

The fact that a 10-year-old, still a child herself, has the maturity to shoulder the responsibility of her baby sibling AND focus on her studies is truly admirable. But it just goes to prove the incredible resilience and capability of firstborns.

And while the video celebrates the strength and competence of eldest daughters (because they really are warriors) it also sheds light on the importance of community support systems in nurturing and assisting families in times of need.

Copyright © 2024 Goalcast

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Rihanna Biography

Birthday: February 20 , 1988 ( Pisces )

Born In: Saint Michael, Barbados

Robyn Rihanna Fenty popularly known as Rihanna is a Barbadian singer-songwriter who gave us hits like ‘Pon de Replay’, ‘SOS’, ‘Umbrella’, and ‘Take a Bow’. A very successful artist still in the prime of her youth, she has already sold over 41 million albums and 150 million songs worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling artists of all time. Born in Barbados, she grew up listening to reggae music and began singing when she was quite young. Disturbed by her chaotic family life and the constant arguments between her parents, she immersed herself in music and before long realized that she wanted to be a professional singer. She formed a musical group while still in high school and got an opportunity to an audition with music producer Evan Rodgers who was highly impressed by the teenager’s talents. He asked the girl to move to New York in order to pursue a full-time career as a singer which she gladly did. Her debut album was soon released and Rihanna became a musical sensation before long. Her peppy, foot-tapping songs became the hot favorites of the youngsters motivating her to venture into films as well. Pretty, young and highly talented, she is today regarded as a teen idol and a fashion icon. Rihanna also puts her fame to good use and is actively involved with several charitable causes

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Nick Name: Rihanna, RiRi, Caribbean Queen, The Barbados Babe

Also Known As: Robyn Rihanna Fenty

Age: 36 Years , 36 Year Old Females

Spouse/Ex-: Chris Brown

father: Ronald Fenty

mother: Monica Braithwaite

siblings: Jamie Fenty, Kandy Fenty, Rajad Fenty, Rorrey Fenty, Samantha Fenty

Born Country: Barbados

Quotes By Rihanna Pop Singers

Height: 5'8" (173 cm ), 5'8" Females

You wanted to know

What are some of rihanna's popular hit songs.

Rihanna has many hit songs, including "Umbrella," "Work," "Diamonds," "We Found Love," and "Love on the Brain."

What is Rihanna's makeup brand called?

Has rihanna won any acting awards, what is rihanna's clothing line called, where is rihanna originally from.

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Rihanna is not only a successful singer, but also a savvy businesswoman with her own makeup line, Fenty Beauty, which gained widespread acclaim for its inclusive range of shades.

She is known for her philanthropic efforts, including founding the Clara Lionel Foundation, which supports education and emergency response programs around the world.

Quotes By Rihanna | Quote Of The Day | Top 100 Quotes

See the events in life of Rihanna in Chronological Order

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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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The Tragic, Real-Life Story Of Rihanna

In 2005, 17-year-old Robyn Rihanna Fenty broke onto the music scene with the release of the smash hit "Pon de Replay." Since then, the world has watched her grow into one of the most successful women on the planet. According to Forbes , Rihanna became the world's richest female musician in 2019, a result of her success with music and makeup, along with becoming "the first black woman in charge of a major luxury fashion house."

Yet, despite being so successful and popular, Rihanna has managed to keep her private life private for the most part. Though many fans are aware of her story during her rise to fame, her life prior to that is not as well known. Perhaps that's because information about the hitmaker's childhood in Barbados is not freely available, or because Rihanna is protective of her family and her secrets.

Whatever the reason, there's an interesting story there. Even if Rihanna makes her success look easy, it was anything but: she grew up in less than ideal conditions and faced more than her fair share of struggles, but it was largely because of her difficult past that she became the person she is today. Here is the tragic, real-life story of Rihanna .

Rihanna grew up with trouble at home

Rihanna remembers  growing up in Barbados as being "just a little island girl riding bikes, running around barefoot and flying kites in the cemetery," but her childhood home wasn't as free. Her father's drinking problems would lead to tense moments. "Fridays would be scary because he would come home drunk," she told Rolling Stone  in 2011. "He'd get paid, and half of it would go toward alcohol. He'd walk in the door, and it was all eyes on him."

The future pop star could feel the temperature in the house go up whenever domestic violence was around the corner, previously telling ABC News , "[My parents] had a very abusive relationship. My dad was the abuser. [He hit her] on numerous accounts." She added, "I don't want to say normal, but it wasn't a surprise when it happened. She never went to the hospital ... Domestic violence is not something that people want anybody to know."

Though her mother was the primary victim of her father's outbursts, Rihanna recalled a time when she was punished for wanting to stay at the beach 10 minutes longer. "He slapped me so hard," she revealed to  Rolling Stone . "I ran home with his handprint on me. I couldn't believe it. My mother saw my face, how traumatized I was. You know how, when you know you did something wrong, and you deserve to get beat? This was out of nowhere."

The origins of Rihanna's hardened entrepreneurial spirit

Rihanna is a musician first, but she's a powerful business woman, as well. As noted by Rolling Stone , "She's had endorsement deals with Nike, Gucci, CoverGirl and Clinique, not to mention her own scent, Reb'l Fleur." Her upbringing as the oldest child in the family made her staunchly independent, and her father helped mold her into the woman she would become. "He taught me how to fish, how to swim, how to run, how to ride," the singer-songwriter told the media outlet. "He really toughened me up."

When she was young, Rihanna's father sold clothes on the street or out of his car to make a living. Whether through want or necessity, she would sometimes join him. "She used to sell stuff on the side of the street like I did," Rihanna's dad, Ronald Fenty, said in a 2011 interview with The Sun . "She'd come outside of the store and put up a rack and sell hats and belts and scarves ... She would also buy sweets, put them in packages and take them to school to sell to her friends for a profit." It was that entrepreneurial spirit that had Rihanna's father thinking she would end up in business. In the end, he was right, in a way.

The breaking up of Rihanna's family

Addiction sadly took a substantial toll on this celeb's early life , when drugs planted their hooks in Rihanna's father and ran havoc through her family home. "My family broke up because of his addiction," she tearfully told Oprah Winfrey on Oprah's Next Chapter . According to the Mirror , dad Ronald Fenty bought drugs even when money and food in the house were low. "Even as a toddler, I learned that my mum and dad would argue when there was foil paper in the ashtray," Rihanna said, referring to drug packaging or freebasing paraphernalia.

When she was nine years old, Rihanna walked in on her dad smoking crack, as per Rolling Stone . "I did have a drug problem and Robyn did walk in and see me taking drugs in our house," Ronald told The Sun . "She was just a little kid and it made her look at me, and other things, differently. Around the same time we were walking down the street with the kids and there was a guy sleeping on the sidewalk. Her mother said to Robyn, 'Your dad is going to end up like that.' I did not want my children to see me sleeping on the sidewalk so I started making the changes."

Rihanna's father would eventually beat his addiction, but it cost him his marriage and damaged his relationship with his children. "I had to give up drugs for my family," he said. "I still kind of lost them."

Rihanna was bullied in school

Rihanna is loved and admired around the world, but she didn't always feel loved as a child in Barbados. Her father was a descendant of a poor Irish community , the members of which were  often referred to by derogatory names . Rihanna's last name, Fenty, was a common surname for this group of people. The future singer-songwriter also had a light skin shade, and this combination led to teasing at school.

"I was cultured in a very 'black' way," Rihanna said in a 2009  Allure interview. "But when I got to school, I'm being called 'white' ... They would look at me, and they would curse me out. I didn't understand." The future celeb didn't take it lightly, and she fought back , some times with her fists. "I got teased my entire school life," she said to Glamour . "What they were picking on I don't even understand. It was my skin color. Then when I got older, it was about my breasts." 

The constant bullying she faced, however, helped shape her and prepare her for a life in the limelight, a life that can be cruel and unforgiving. "This thick skin has been developing since my first day at school," Rihanna told  Harper's Bazaar  in 2015. "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."

Rihanna was a good girl gone bad

With Rihanna's father battling his own demons and the fights at home increasing, the future celeb's mental health understandably suffered . Though the trouble at home was kept private, the young Rihanna began to separate herself from the other kids at school. According to Rolling Stone , "She wouldn't talk, wouldn't even cry." It was around this time that the future singer's grades slipped along with her health. 

"She had always been a straight-A student, but she started to struggle," Rihanna's mother, Monica Braithwaite, said. "She would suffer from these terrible headaches. She had to get CT scans." The headaches went on from the age of eight until Rihanna was 14, but the doctors had no answers for the excruciating migraine-like attacks. Initially, they believed that Rihanna may have a tumor of some sort, with the singer herself once saying , "It was that intense." However, the test results always came back negative. 

It wasn't until her parents separated and the fighting stopped that the headaches finally went away. Rihanna believes that the pain was caused by the emotional stress of the arguing and domestic abuse.

Rihanna has suffered a history of violence

In February 2009, the world was rocked by reports that Chris Brown had abused then-girlfriend Rihanna . TMZ  later released photos of her battered face, and the abused singer became fodder for nearly every news outlet in the U.S., causing Rihanna to retreat from the public eye for months.

In her isolation, however, she began to worry about Brown, despite her being the victim. "If I feel this depressed , then what is he going through?" Rihanna later explained to  ABC News . "I had to protect him. I thought that I had to let him know, don't do anything crazy. Like just hang in there ... The whole world hates him now. His fans, his career. He just, he lost me, I just need to let him know; don't do anything stupid." Eventually, the two  reunited  and Rihanna  faced criticism  for it. 

For her part, Rihanna was disappointed because she'd made a promise to her younger self that she was "never going to date somebody like my dad" (via E! News ). She wasn't proud of her choice, but she had been overpowered by love. Fair or not, Rihanna found that her personal decisions had far-reaching consequences, and told  ABC News , "It's completely normal to go back. It's not right. When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result in some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part. I couldn't be held responsible for going back."

Rihanna has faced non-stop rumors

Many high-profile celebrities contend with rumors, from exaggerated tales to outright lies. For Rihanna, it seems that every single celebrity she talks to becomes the target of a reported relationship . While working on a Rolling Stone  cover story, Rihanna happened to be in the same restaurant as Colin Farrell, someone she'd been rumored to be sending salacious texts. As Farrell left the restaurant, he stopped by the singer's table. "Our friends outside are gonna get some good mileage out of this," he jokingly said. "We're gonna be texting each other all f**king night!" The actor was right: the next morning, several tabloids suggested the two celebs ate dinner together and were romantically linked. 

To make matters worse, rumors have sometimes come from within. After Rihanna was assaulted by Chris Brown, her father sold information to the press . "That was the first time," Rihanna later told  Vogue  in 2011 (via Billboard ). "My dad went to the press and just told them a bunch of lies. Because he hadn't talked to me after ... that whole thing." She added, "He never called to find out how I was doing, if I was alive, nothing ... He went straight to the press and got a check." That wouldn't be the last time either, as Ronald Fenty would later sell more gossip on his famous daughter. "It really makes me question what I have become to my father," Rihanna wondered. "Like, what do I even mean to him?"

Rihanna's lawsuit against her father

After her challenges with Chris Brown, Rihanna found that she was spiralling into a dark place. She recalled on Oprah's Next Chapter   that she was "resentful," "angry," and struggling to overcome it all. When asked how she finally got through it, Rihanna said, "[I] repaired my relationship with dad." The singer had grown apart from her father after her parents' divorce years earlier. "I was so angry at him," she explained, adding, "I couldn't separate him as husband from him as a father."

After the reconciliation, however, Rihanna and Ronald Fenty continued butting heads. In some cases, it wasn't personal — it was business. According to CNN , Rihanna discovered that her father and his business partner, Moses Perkins, were allegedly using her name and brand, Fenty, to earn money. The singer and her representatives reportedly asked the pair repeatedly "to cease and desist all activity and efforts to exploit Rihanna's name and the goodwill associated with the Fenty brand." When that failed, they filed a lawsuit.

According to the 2019 suit, Rihanna's father reportedly launched a production and talent company called Fenty Entertainment in 2017, and negotiated 15 unauthorized Rihanna shows in Latin America, two at the Staples Center, and another at the T-Mobile Arena, all totaling nearly $15.5 million. He even reportedly attempted to use the Fenty brand to register a line of resort hotels. With the case set to move to a jury trial in June 2020,  The Blast  reports that it was later postponed due to the pandemic.

Rihanna became the family caregiver

Rihanna was exposed to things in life much earlier than most. In fact, she saw and experienced things as a child that most people never do. By the time the singer-songwriter was 16 years old, her father had moved out and her mother had returned to work to support the family. This left the young teenager at home to look after younger brother Rajad. Though it caused Rihanna to grow up quickly, she looks back at these times fondly, telling  Elle  that it was "probably the best summer I ever had."

But it was more than one summer that she would act as caregiver. While Rihanna takes on much of this willingly, such as gifting her mother a massive mansion , some of it has been imposed upon her. In 2008, she was forced to send her father home from her U.S. tour for drunken behavior. According to the Daily Mail , in order to save her father from going to jail for a California arrest, Rihanna agreed to pay $58,000 for him to enter a Malibu rehab program in 2013. And while speaking with Rolling Stone , Rihanna revealed that her dad once sent her a text with nothing but prices for furniture that he wanted to buy for his house. "It's fine," she explained. "I'll give my father anything. It's not something that's hard for me to help him with. It's just, like — damn, Dad. Hi."

She's scrutinized for small details

Being an international superstar is not easy (or so we assume). It comes with a lack of privacy and constant rumors, as well as incessant scrutiny, something of which Rihanna is, unfortunately, an expert. Rihanna has been criticized for a variety of reasons, a major one being her music. The last full album Rihanna released was "Anti" in 2016. It went number one on the Billboard 200 , and gave us hits like "Work" and "Needed Me." The album was a massive hit, and Rihanna sees it as her greatest work to date, but that does not mean fans are satisfied. Fans want more music from the star, and they are not shy about letting her know, especially on social media.

After posting a photo to Instagram stating her New Year's resolution, one fan commented, "Resolution should be releasing the album," in reference to R9 , the appellation used for the forthcoming album from the singer. Rihanna is not one to let people get her down, though, and she replied, "this comment is sooo 2019. grow up" (via Complex ).

Criticism of the singer is not limited to music, though. In 2022, while arriving at an event, Rihanna was heckled by someone yelling , "You're late," to which the singer replied "No sh*t." Sigh. Fame is not for the faint of heart.

She's endured public heartbreak

When you're famous, you can't go through a major life event without the world finding out. Even if you are a master at secret-keeping, eventually your business is made public. And for Rihanna, some of those major life events have tragically included heartbreak. The singer dated fellow musician and collaborator Drake on and off for several years. The couple delighted fans when they went from friends to partners, but the delight was short-lived, as the two ultimately split. The singer eventually told Vogue , "We don't have a friendship now, but we're not enemies either. It is what it is."

Drake isn't the only man Rihanna has dated publicly. For three years, the singer was with Hassan Jameel, a Saudi billionaire. Rihanna was focused on making the relationship work, sharing that she would clear her calendar for days at a time to be with Jameel, but unfortunately her efforts fell short as the two couldn't make their schedules work.

The news was especially saddening after reading the words she spoke to Vogue : "I'm actually in an exclusive relationship for quite some time, and it's going really well, so I'm happy." Even celebrities are not immune to heartbreak.

Rihanna's pregnancy and relationship have been questioned

Although Rihanna's had lots of tragedy in her life, she's also had lots of joy, like learning she's expecting a child with her boyfriend A$AP Rocky. In 2022, the singer made headlines for her pregnancy, particularly her bold style. "When I found out I was pregnant, I thought to myself, there's no way I'm going to go shopping in the maternity aisle. I'm sorry – it's too much fun to get dressed up," she told Vogue . She also told the magazine, "I just feel like I can do any part of life by his side," in reference to A$AP Rocky.

But because she is in the spotlight, no good part of her life can come without something overshadowing it. One shadow came in the form of a theory that Rihanna is faking her pregnancy. Tweets and YouTube videos have documented the outlandish theory, but the singer has not responded to the rumors. Who can blame her, though? There's only so much time in the day.

Another rumor came at the hands of an influencer who wrongfully claimed that A$AP Rocky was cheating on Rihanna. Although Rihanna did not respond to those rumors either, the woman he was supposedly cheating with, designer Amina Muaddi, responded on Twitter, saying , "I initially assumed that this fake gossip – fabricated with such malicious intent – would not be taken seriously," adding, "Therefore I have to speak up as this is ... related to people I have a great amount of respect and affection for."

She lost her cousin to gun violence

In 2017, Rihanna sadly lost her cousin. Tavon Kaiseen Alleyne was living in Barbados and was shot one evening near his house. Rihanna and her cousin were close, as she documented on social media. After learning of his death, she took to Instagram to pay tribute, sharing "can't believe it was just last night that I held you in my arms! never thought that would be the last time I felt the warmth in your body!!! Love you always man."

The singer attended his funeral and shared photos on social media. "Sleep well buddy..we are at peace knowing you're in a better place than we are. We will always have a void without you, but we will never stop loving you ... Hope you were happy with your going away celebration today," she said, as reported by Vibe.

The singer used the harrowing event to speak out against gun violence, using the hashtag #EndGunViolence in her first tribute post.

July 2, 2024

Life Story of Famous People

Short Bio » Pop Singer » Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress. She’s become the youngest solo artist to score 14 no. 1 singles on the billboard hot 100—the fastest to do so—she’s sold more than 54 million albums and 210 million tracks worldwide. Rihanna is the “best selling digital artist of all time… with more than 100 million [riaa] gold & platinum song certifications” and an eight-time grammy award winner who also counts 14 billboard music awards among other countless music accolades. Aside from her musical achievements, rihanna is bona fide business woman with multiple entrepreneurial ventures. however, most importantly, her undeniable cultural influence has forever imprinted her in history as a global icon despite her young age.

Early Life Of Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados. Her mother, Monica (Braithwaite), is a retired accountant of African American background, and her father, Ronald Fenty, is a warehouse supervisor of Afro-Barbadian and Irish descent. Rihanna grew up listening to reggae music and began singing at around the age of seven. She attended Charles F. Broome Memorial Primary School and Combermere High School, where she studied alongside future England cricketer Chris Jordan and future West Indies cricketer Kraigg Brathwaite. Rihanna was an army cadet in a sub-military programme; the singer-songwriter Shontelle was her drill sergeant. Although she initially wanted to graduate from high school, she chose to pursue a musical career instead.

Career Of Rihanna

Rihanna won numerous beauty pageants and performed Mariah Carey’s single “Hero” in a school talent show. Her life changed forever when one of her friends introduced her to Evan Rodgers, a producer from New York who was in Barbados for a vacation with his wife, who is a native. Rodgers arranged for her to go to New York to meet Jay Z, CEO of Def Jam Records. He heard her sing and knew she was going to be incredibly successful. She was age 16 when she was signed to Def Jam. Since then, she’s amassed phenomenal success. Before long Rihanna had signed a contract with DefJam Recordings and brought out her debut album, ‘Music of the Sun’ in 2005. It debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and sold over two million copies worldwide despite receiving only mixed reviews from critics. Her second album ‘A Girl Like Me’ was released the next year. The album not only became a huge commercial success charting in the top ten in 13 countries, but also established the young singer as a teenager sensation. It featured the hit single ‘SOS’ which peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

After enjoying more success in the ensuing months, she embarked on the Glow in the Dark Tour with Kanye West, Lupe, N.E.R.D, and others in 2008. The concert tour travelled to Latin America, Asia, Europe, New Zealand and Australia, and received much critical acclaim. In 2009, her much awaited album ‘Rated R’ was out. She adopted a new musical style in this album which was well-received by her fans. The album reached No. 4 on the US Billboard 200 chart and featured the single ‘Rude Boy’ which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks. The year 2010 was a very eventful year for her. Her album ‘Loud’ went on to become a super-hit prompting the artist to embark on the Loud Tour to promote it further. ‘Loud’ spawned numerous hits including ‘What’s My Name’, ‘Only Girl (In the World)’ and ‘S&M’. She also featured on many hits by other artists, including Jay-Z’s ‘Run this Town’, Eminem’s ‘Love the Way You Lie’ and Kanye West’s ‘All of the Lights’. More Info: Wiki | IMDb | Twitter | Instagram | FB | YouTube

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Rihanna: Life, career, net worth and more

Over the years, rihanna won many accolades including nine grammy awards, 13 american music awards, 12 billboard music awards, and six guinness world records..

International pop star Rihanna drew attention on Tuesday after she reacted to a news report about the ongoing farmers’ protest in India. She tweeted, “Why aren’t we talking about this? #FarmersProtest.” Her tweet was widely shared on social media. If you are wondering who is Rihanna, read on.

Rihanna started her music career at the age of 15 after she performed for music producer Evan Rogers and Carl Struken in 2003. Her debut album Music of the Sun was released by Def Jam in 2005. But it was in 2007 that the singer gained recognition with the release of her album Good Girl Gone Bad. Her single “Umbrella” earned Rihanna her first Grammy award. In the following years, she released other successful albums like Rated R (2009), Loud (2010), Talk That Talk (2011), and Unapologetic (2012).

Over the years, the 32-year-old singer won many accolades including nine Grammy Awards, 13 American Music Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, and six Guinness World Records. She became the first female solo artist to sell out 10 concerts at London’s O2 Arena. The pop star achieved 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since making her debut. She’s accumulated 31 Top 10 hits on the chart. With a net worth of USD 600 million (Rs 44,07,71,10,000), Rihanna featured in the Forbes’ list of richest self-made women in 2020.

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Apart from music, Rihanna also tried her hands at acting. She made her movie debut in 2012 with Battleship, following it up with movies like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), and Ocean’s 8 (2018). She has also been involved in philanthropic work through her non-profit organisation Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF). The “Believe It” singer has a strong presence on social media with over 81 million Facebook fans, 101 million Twitter followers and 90.3 million Instagram followers.

The “Don’t Stop The Music” singer is also an entrepreneur and co-owns makeup brand Fenty Beauty.

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Together with Rogers and his partner, Carl Sturken, Rihanna composed almost a dozen songs, taking inspiration from dancehall and ragamuffin which are the musical culture of her origin and blended them with R&B tunes. "My music is mostly Caribbean beats mixed with R&B," she described eagerly. "I don't want to be pigeon holed into being just a dance artist because I can sing too. I have ballads on the album as well as upbeat tracks."

Looking for a label, Rihanna landed her feet at Def Jam Recordings in which Shawn Carter or popularly known as Jay-Z has become the president as well as its CEO. Upon witnessing her performance, the acclaimed rapper quickly offered her a recording contract on the spot. She afterwards set out to collect materials for her debut album, co-writing most of its tracks. "Pon De Replay" eventually was released on May 25, 2005. The single turned out to be a great piece of music as it was labeled one of the summer's hottest jams in U.S..

Achieving success with "Pon De Replay," Rihanna put her hopes to repeat the same attainment on her first album " Music of the Sun " which was launched on August 30, 2005. With tracks featuring both Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel , it provided some serious heat to burn either radio stations or clubs throughout the country. It was truly like a dream coming true for the enchanting performer. "If I hadn't met Evan and Carl I might have just been dreaming forever. I am so thankful for everything they've done for me," Rihanna said gratefully. Dream or no dream, her debut album, recorded by RIAA, received Gold in U.S. and Platinum in several other countries. She was soon the highly anticipated act that Gwen Stefani tapped her to open her tour.

This success was relayed by Rihanna's sophomore set titled " A Girl Like Me " that was out in April 2006, only eight months after the first album's release. Instead of crushing her career, the rush actually brought a greater triumph for her. The lead single "SOS" entered Billboard Hot 100 chart at #1 and therefore marked her first No.1 song. The same song gained popularity in U.K. and Australia followed by equally strong "Unfaithful". The third single released "We Ride" however, didn't meet the same fate as it failed to enter the Hot 100 chart but was good enough to send the album to 2x platinum sale.

Having a good rhythm, Rihanna released the third album ' Good Girl Gone Bad ' the next year. Before the package arrived on the shelves, first single "Umbrella" featuring Jay-Z had a slow start in Billboard Hot 100 by entering the chart under Top 40. However, the catchy chorus and fresh beat quickly won the single a much better luck by peaking at no.1 in U.K. single chart and a ten consecutive weeks reign at the same position. Receiving mostly favorable reviews, the third studio effort topped the charts in multiple countries including the U.K., Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Russia and at number two in the U.S. and Australia. A headlining tour was kicked off in September 2007 to support the album. She was then a frequent nominated artist and winner of awards events including Teen Choice Awards, Grammy Awards and MTV Video Music Awards in 2007.

So successful was "Good Girl Gone Bad" that it was re-released in June 2008 under the title " Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded ". Three new songs, "Disturbia", "Take a Bow" and "If I Never See Your Face Again", were added as bonus. All three amazingly went well on the chart and boosted the sale of the remix album " Good Girl Gone Bad: The Remixes ", which was released in January 2009.

In the peak of her success, a tragedy struck Rihanna's personal life. On the eve she was supposed to perform at the 51st Grammy Awards, Rihanna got into a physical altercation with then-boyfriend Chris Brown . It quickly became hot news as Rihanna and Brown's romance had been under the spotlight all that year. Brown was arrested for assaulting Rihanna and making criminal threats. Photo of Rihanna's battered and bruised face surfaced online, leading to many protests and hatred for Brown. In June 2009, Brown pled guilty to the felony assault and received five years probation in exchange of his plea. He was also ordered to stay fifty yards away from Rihanna.

Rihanna was back to record music in July 2009, collaborating with Kanye West and her mentor Jay-Z in "Run This Town". Several months later, her fourth studio album " Rated R " was released with "Russian Roulette" as the first single. However, it was third single "Rude Boy" that became the album's juggernaut, peaking at number 1 on Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks. She went on Last Girl on Earth Tour to support the album, traveling worldwide. Rihanna also made a successful collaboration with Eminem on "Love the Way You Lie", which touched the subject very sensitive to her heart; domestic violence. The song went number 1 in more than 20 countries.

Rihanna announced in October 2010 that she had parted ways with manager Marc Jordan and joined Jay-Z's Roc Nation. She released new single "Only Girl (In the World)" that year as the first offering from her fifth studio album, " Loud ". The song was followed by "What's My Name?", featuring Drake , that reached number one on several charts even before its predecessor. "Only Girl" went on winning a Grammy Award in 2011 for Best Dance Recording and Rihanna embarked on another headlining tour which was sold out in most dates.

A year after "Loud" hit the market, a new studio album called " Talk That Talk " was released in November 2011. The lead single, "We Found Love", topped charts in eighteen countries worldwide, peaking on the top ten in thirty countries and breaking a string of records worldwide. Rihanna won Video of the Year award at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards. Surprisingly, Rihanna reconciled with Brown to record a remix of her songs called "Birthday Cake" and "Turn Up the Music" for the new album. In fact, she would be seen on the same scenes with Brown from then on.

Rihanna starred in her first theatrical feature film " Battleship ", which was released on May 18, 2012. Her acting was labeled mediocre by many critics. Rihanna was soon back in the studio to record her seventh studio album, " Unapologetic ", featuring another collaboration with Brown called "Nobody's Business". The album's lead single "Diamonds" peaked at number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. On top of releasing the album on November 19, 2012, Rihanna had scheduled a worldwide tour that begins in March 2013.

Following the success of "Unapologetic", which became her first No. 1 set on Billboard 200, Rihanna joined Eminem for another chart-topping single. They collaborated again on "The Monster" off the rapper's 2014 album, " MMLP2 ".

Rumors about Rihanna's new album began swirling in late 2014. In the following year, she joined " The Voice " as the key adviser for the ninth season, released the hit "FourFiveSeconds" with Kanye West and Sir Paul McCartney , and another single "B**ch Better Have My Money". She announced the album's title, " Anti ", and unveiled its cover art in late 2015, but the year ended with no R8 in sight.

The long wait was finally over in late January 2016, when she released the album on Jay-Z's Tidal. It was made available exclusively on the service for a few days before hitting iTunes and other retailers. As part of her partnership with Samsung, she also gave away a million copies of the album to Samsung users. Because of that, the record was immediately certified Platinum by the RIAA, though Nielsen wouldn't count the free copies for the Billboard 200 chart.

"Anti" missed the chart's top 10 in its first week, but soared to No. 1 in the second week. Its lead single, the Drake-assisted "Work", was an instant hit, currently sitting at No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100.

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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: [ + ]

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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Barbados-born Rihanna (Fenty) debuted with (2005) and its feverishly booming rigmarole , but became a superstar with (2006), that sampled the Soft Cell's , (2007), a techno ditty that sampled , and the pop-hop ballad (2007), that became her biggest hit, and therefore with (2007). (2009) attempted a self-portrait as a young angry girl. Her lyrics adopted the tone (and the class) of a street girl, while injecting doses of punk-rock, hip-hop, and power-pop into her techno-soul blend. and were the singles. was the first major hit penned by Ester Dean. (2010) contains her most exuberant dance songs yet, reminiscent of the disco and house eras: and especially , produced by Sandy "Vee" Wilhelm and Stargate (the duo of Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen); but also another Ester Dean-pened pop-hop ballad, . (2011) contains Calvin Harris' and Ester Dean's . , off (2012), became her 12th number-one single in the USA, making her the fourth most successful musician of all times in the USA after Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey and the Beatles. (2015), featuring Kanye West and Paul McCartney, was the first single off (2016). By then Rihanna had become the first musician to sell more than l00 million gold and platinum songs (but most of them in digital download format). Another smash hit, , was a collaboration with Drake. The album was actually less commercial than the previous ones, and Rihanna made a honest effort to write poignant lyrics; but a composer she is not. (Translation by/ Tradotto da: a /mu/ anon) Rihanna (Fenty), nata alle Barbados, ha debuttato con (2005) e il confuso singolo , ma � diventata una superstar con (2006), che ha campionato , (2007), una canzoncina techno che campiona , e la ballata pop-hop (2007), che � diventata il suo pi� grande successo. Speculando sulla sua vita privata (2009) ha tentato un autoritratto da giovane ragazza arrabbiata. I suoi testi hanno adottato il tono (e la classe) di una ragazza di strada, iniettando dosi di punk-rock, hip-hop e power-pop nella sua miscela techno-soul. e erano i singoli. � stato il primo grande successo scritto da Ester Dean. (2010) contiene le sue canzoni dance pi� esuberanti, che ricordano le epoche disco e house: e soprattutto , prodotto da Stargate e Sandy Vee; ma anche un'altra ballata pop-hop scritta da Ester Dean, . (2011) contiene di Calvin Harris e di Ester Dean. di Sia Furler, da (2012), � diventato il suo dodicesimo singolo numero uno negli Stati Uniti, rendendola la quarta musicista di maggior successo di tutti i tempi negli Stati Uniti dopo Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey e i Beatles. (2015), con Kanye West e Paul McCartney, � stato il primo singolo di (2016). A quel punto Rihanna era diventata la prima musicista a vendere pi� di 100 milioni di canzoni d'oro e di platino (ma la maggior parte di esse in formato download digitale). Un altro grande successo, , � stata una collaborazione con Drake. L'album era in realt� meno commerciale dei precedenti e Rihanna fece uno sforzo onesto per scrivere testi toccanti; ma non � una compositrice. 500 IMAGES Rihanna Rihanna's Biography, Nationality, Age, Properties And Height The Untold Story of Rihanna Rihanna Biography Rihanna Biography (Singer) baby, age, birthday, net Worth and more Rihanna VIDEO short biography of rihanna #biographies #rihanna #glimpsebiodocumentries Rihanna Biography 2024 #therichlife #deucelite #rihanna #shorts #beyonce #chrisbrown #asaprocky new album #rihanna Is Loud Rihanna’s Best Album? Yes… Sleeping Secret "Rihanna: The Untold Story of a Global Icon COMMENTS Rihanna 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 ... Rihanna Former protege sues The-Dream, accusing the hitmaking music producer of sexual assault. Rihanna (born February 20, 1988, St. Michael parish, Barbados) is a Barbadian pop and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer who became a worldwide star in the early 21st century. She is known for her distinctive and versatile voice and for her fashionable appearance. Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty (/ r i ˈ æ n ə / ⓘ ree-AN-ə; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, businesswoman and actress. She was cited as the best-selling female recording artist of the 21st century by Guinness World Records and is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, with sales estimated at 250 million units worldwide. Rihanna is the highest-certified female artist ... Rihanna 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. Rihanna Rihanna. Actress: Battleship. Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 in Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados to Monica Braithwaite, an accountant & Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor. Her mother is Afro-Guyanese and her father is of Afro-Barbadian and British Isles ancestry. Rihanna lived the life of a normal island girl going to Combermere, a top sixth form school. Rihanna: Timeline of Her Life and Most Iconic Moments Jay-Z and Rihanna in 2005. She has described his treatment of her as "paternal." John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images In December 2004, Rihanna recorded the Caribbean jam "Pon de ... Rihanna Rihanna (real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty) was born and raised in Barbados. Her birthday is Feb. 20, 1988, and her height is 5'8". She got her start when at age 15, she met producers Evan Rogers and C… Rihanna Website. rihanna .com. Signature. Robyn Rihanna Fenty, best known as Rihanna, ( / riˈænə / ( listen) ree-AN-ə; [2] [3] [n 1] born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, model, actress and businesswoman. She is seen to be as one of the most successful singers in the 21st century, she signed with Def Jam Recordings in 2005 and ... Songbook: The Ultimate Guide To Rihanna's Reign, From Her Record An Icon In The Making. Rihanna was a familiar face by 2007, but with the arrival of her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad, she graduated from cookie-cutter pop star to bonafide icon. Produced by Tricky Stewart, the LP's juggernaut lead single "Umbrella" featuring Jay-Z skyrocketed to No. 1 in 17 countries.Between striking images of Rihanna's silver-painted silhouette in the accompanying ... Rihanna Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael's Parish, Barbados. Her mother, Monica, hails from Guyana and is an accountant-turned-boutique owner. Her father, Ronald, is a Barbadian and has worked as a warehouse supervisor. Growing up, Rihanna watched her father struggle with addiction as he battled crack ... Rihanna Is The 21st Century's Most Influential Musician 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 ... Rihanna's Life Story: From Island Tomboy to Platinum Pop ... 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. ... Rihanna Biography Robyn Rihanna Fenty popularly known as Rihanna is a Barbadian singer-songwriter who gave us hits like 'Pon de Replay', 'SOS', 'Umbrella', and 'Take a Bow'. A very successful artist still in the prime of her youth, she has already sold over 41 million albums and 150 million songs worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling ... 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 ... Rihanna albums discography Rihanna albums discography Rihanna performing in Toronto during the Diamonds World Tour in March 2013. Studio albums 8 EPs 3 Soundtrack albums 1 Remix albums 2 Reissues 1 Box sets 7 Barbadian singer Rihanna has released eight studio albums, two remix albums, one reissue, seven box sets and three extended plays. Since the beginning of her career in 2005, Rihanna has sold 60 million album units ... The Tragic, Real-Life Story Of Rihanna The Tragic, Real-Life Story Of Rihanna. In 2005, 17-year-old Robyn Rihanna Fenty broke onto the music scene with the release of the smash hit "Pon de Replay." Since then, the world has watched her ... Rihanna Biography Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress. She's become the youngest solo artist to score 14 no. 1 singles on the billboard hot 100—the fastest to do so—she's sold more than 54 million albums and 210 million tracks worldwide. Rihanna is the "best selling digital artist of all time… with more than 100 million ... Rihanna: Life, career, net worth and more With a net worth of USD 600 million (Rs 44,07,71,10,000), Rihanna featured in the Forbes' list of richest self-made women in 2020. Apart from music, Rihanna also tried her hands at acting. She made her movie debut in 2012 with Battleship, following it up with movies like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), and Ocean's 8 (2018). Rihanna Biography and Life Story Rihanna starred in her first theatrical feature film "Battleship", which was released on May 18, 2012. Her acting was labeled mediocre by many critics. Her acting was labeled mediocre by many critics. Rihanna Height, Weight, Age, Boyfriend, Husband, Family, Biography 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. 45 Fabulous Facts About Rihanna 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. Who is Rihanna? Robyn Rihanna Fenty NH is a Barbadian singer, actress, fashion designer, and businesswoman. Join us as we share interesting facts from the biography of Rihan... The History of Rock Music. Rihanna: biography, discography, review Barbados-born Rihanna (Fenty) debuted with Music Of The Sun (2005) and its feverishly booming rigmarole Pon De Replay, but became a superstar with SOS (2006), that sampled the Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Don't Stop the Music (2007), a techno ditty that sampled Soul Makossa, and the pop-hop ballad Umbrella (2007), that became her biggest hit, and therefore with Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). Rihanna Net Worth 2024: How Much Money Does She Make Endorsements. Specific figures for Rihanna's brand endorsement earnings in 2024 haven't been made public. But her history of high-profile deals paints a clear picture of a savvy businesswoman. assignment essay homework paper phd report review speech thesis