Days after announcing her second pregnancy, Rihanna continues to surprise. This time, she appears in cover of the UK edition of the magazine vogue, alongside her partner, rapper A$AP Rocky, and their nine-month-old son. The singer speaks openly about the challenges of motherhood and how she manages to balance her routine, between a baby and a list of professional achievements. There’s just something she doesn’t confide in and remains a mystery, much to the chagrin of fans: what’s the boy’s name?
During her pregnancy, the singer from Barbados was often in the news for the irreverence of what she wore and for not depriving herself of being bold. But after becoming a mother, Rihanna adopted a more discreet attitude and even describes the first months as a roller coaster. The delivery was “beautiful”, despite being painful, but the real shock came as soon as he got home: “It was just us, as parents and our baby. Are zombies most of the time.”
At first, she confesses, she doubted herself, because she was alone, “without doctors, without nurses”. And she jokes: “Do you trust us to go home with this baby?” It would be a few weeks before her boyfriend, A$AP Rocky, had to leave on a European tour — Rihanna and the baby would join him. “I was happy when I had time to shower,” she says, echoing how many mothers feel.
And if getting dressed during pregnancy “was a piece of cake”, in the postpartum period it was not the same. “I didn’t know what to wear. Everything was either too small or too big,” she says. The solution, he observes, is to wait. Well, “unless they get pregnant again,” she counters—that seems to have been her choice.
In the midst of the postpartum emotional challenge, an invitation to perform at the mythical Super Bowl halftime came up, a proposal that had already declined in the past, for not agreeing with some attitudes of the organization, especially with regard to representativeness. But after performances by artists like Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige and Kendrick Lamar, he changed his mind, mainly because he wanted to contribute to showing the power of black artists. “Raising a black boy is one of the biggest responsibilities of my life,” he declares. And he asks: “What am I leaving my children? Is this the planet we are going to live on?”
Last Sunday’s challenge would prove to be one of the biggest of his career, largely due to not stepping on stage for seven years: “Seven years! From scratch to the Super Bowl? It’s crazy.” Especially since, when she accepted the invitation, she had no idea that she would be pregnant again. The performance would be a success and would earn Rihanna millions, just in media impact.
Privacy
In the interview with vogue, the artist constantly refers to her son as a “baby”, as the couple prefers to keep the child’s name a secret. By the way, before the interview, Rihanna had only shown the baby’s face once, in a TikTok video, which drove fans crazy.
@Rihanna hacked
I wanted to be the one to show the baby for the first time, afraid that the paparazzi would do it. “Throw me to the wolves. Do what you want with me. But he has nothing to do with it.” His biggest fear, he asserts, was seeing the boy’s photographs sold to dubious publications.
An attitude he shares with rapper A$AP Rocky, who he defines as his “best friend”. Being parents, he defends, it is important to be in tune and the baby has brought them even closer, he assures. The nine-month-old boy is in love with his father and Rihanna humorously confides that she is a little jealous. “As soon as Rocky looks at him, he goes crazy. What they say about boys and mothers is a myth.”
As for the next child, the singer says she has no gender preference and is “open” to what “God wants”. For now, we can expect a pregnancy full of looks iconic clothes and expectations are growing about what he will wear to the Oscars, on March 12th. Rihanna is nominated for Best Original Song with lift me upof the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.