In celebration of Rihanna’s 72 cover, Afua Hirsch recounts her first meeting with Rihanna, a woman who continues to forge a legacy steeped in an unwavering dedication to authentic creativity.
The last time I wrote about Rihanna, I was left wondering if she had the ability to see into the future. I had travelled to LA to interview her, and we stayed up all night talking about her Caribbean childhood, her family’s experiences of immigration and her love of tequila. She insisted that, at 32, she was working at a frenzied pace so that in future she didn’t have to, especially since she dreamed of becoming a mother, and having at least three children. At some point soon, she said, her life was going to change.
In fact, all our lives were about to change. Transiting through LAX airport on my way to meet her, I had observed with curiosity passengers from China transiting through the airport in full hazmat suits. Just days after I got home, the world went into full Covid lockdown, not to emerge for two years.
But it’s Rihanna’s sense of her own life’s evolution that seems so prescient. In 2020, she had recently come out of a long relationship, and having children was a future dream. Now, she is in a long-term relationship with the rapper, entrepreneur and designer A$AP Rocky. In 2025, the couple welcomed their third child, Rocki Irish Mayers, alongside RZA, born in 2022, and son, Riot, who was born in 2023.
Rihanna, who seems physically incapable of doing anything half-heartedly, has become not only a mother, but an iconic ambassador for motherhood, its dignity and beauty. Ever since she announced her first pregnancy by allowing herself to be photographed in Harlem wearing a vintage hot-pink Chanel puffer, ripped jeans, and jewel-laden gold chains draped over her bare stomach, she has been described as “changing the game” in pregnancy dressing. ‘Pregnancy adorning’ would be a more appropriate description. Since then, the list of her pregnancy looks has left us unclear whether Rihanna dresses for pregnancy, or whether pregnancy dresses her.
My interview with Rihanna was the first time she had spoken publicly about the fact she intended to have three or four children one day. So I have felt a special joy on each of these pregnancy announcements because I knew, having heard it directly from her, that each one was closer to fulfilling a dream.
Meanwhile Rihanna has continued to achieve staggering success in other areas of her life. The prowess of Fenty Beauty, which remains one of the strongest celebrity founded beauty brands, and her lingerie brand SAVAGE x Fenty, places her as one of the richest women in the world and one of very few billionaires who are female, and even fewer who are Black. This year she was honoured with the 2026 Edison Achievement Award, in recognition of her substance as a business leader.
It would have been hard to imagine, back in 2020, that unapologetically celebrating motherhood while continuing to thrive in business would in itself become a radical act. But in an era where some political figures are advocating, without irony, that women should stay at home and reproduce quietly, Rihanna’s energy lands differently.
Rihanna is that rare figure, a celebrity who enjoys vast global recognition, yet knows her very existence is political, and does not shy away from that fact. Back in 2020, she spoke to me about her compassion for people left vulnerable or marginalised by politics, having grown up with immigrants with precarious immigration status around her in Barbados. Back then, she voiced strong support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
In the years since, she has formed a close bond with Barbados’ widely celebrated female prime minister Mia Mottley, who has led the Caribbean nation to its new status as parliamentary republic, and removed the British monarch as head of state. One of the country’s first acts after breaking away from the last vestiges of the colonial system, was naming Rihanna a National Hero, conferring upon her the official title: The Right Honourable Robyn Rihanna Fenty. Rihanna is often seen travelling to her Caribbean home with her family and was recently photographed attending a family birthday party in the capital Bridgetown, her children surrounded by their relatives, while Rihanna chatted with local people and family members alike.
Rihanna has remained supportive of Mottley as the Prime Minister and has become one of the most vocal and active participants in the growing global movements towards reparations of those descended from African enslavement. And Rihanna’s own outspoken stance on the suffering of civilians in the Middle East has seen her wade into treacherous territory for a high-profile celebrity and entrepreneur, and yet Rihanna has refused to stay silent.
Sometimes it’s the unintentional moments that most reveal her character, however. At this year’s Met Gala, where she and A$AP Rocky were described as “fashion’s royal couple”, Rihanna wore a sculptural Maison Margiela gown by the Belgian designer Glenn Martens, referencing the medieval architecture of Flanders. Crowned with an Art Deco-style headpiece, the gown was reportedly sculpted by hand from duchess woven silk and recycled metal threads, usually used for computer wiring, plus over 115,000 crystal beads, antique jewels, and chains.
Yet equally talked about was a spontaneous moment during her arrival where Rihanna spoke to TODAY show anchor and journalist Sheinelle Jones. Jones had asked the star a question, and instead of ignoring her, as many stars do on the high-pressure red carpet, Rihanna paused for a heartfelt exchange. “You deserve to be poured into. And you’re beautiful, you’re a Black journalist and I respect you,” Rihanna said, holding Jones’s hands. The encounter quickly went viral.
And yet Rihanna will forever be loved for her first talent – music. The artist recently shared an Instagram video teasing fans with the suggestion that she is back in the recording studio. The post – whose audio was muted – showed her approaching the music with “new ears” and a new perspective. And, in a detail that seemed very authentic to me, revealed the time of recording to be 3:14am.
Rihanna’s last substantial studio album was a decade ago, with the release of Anti in 2016. Yet even her refusal to churn out music in the intervening years – no matter the intensity of the demand – says something about her character. To coin the language of today’s AI-laden world, she is not an artist pursuing optimisation, or the most efficient way of achieving commercial success through art. She is waiting until she has something she believes in – commensurate not just with her trademark quality, but also with her trademark playfulness.
When I spoke to Rihanna all those years ago, I asked her whether she would still have children if she did not find love, and she insisted that she would, saying that the bond between a parent and a child is the most important thing, whether or not you find the right partner. It makes it all the more compelling to see that love has, apparently, found her. I was especially captivated by what A$AP Rocky said about the mother of his three children when asked about their relationship.
He described her as “magic”, and said, “philosophically, the way she operates is on another level. She is the most charming and genuine person on Earth. Her energy is unmatched—one of a kind. I just adore her.” No one can know the intimate truths of a relationship from the outside. But for me, that really rings true.
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