Rihanna is back on the cover of Vogue Magazine for the fourth time. While we’ll never tire of seeing the gorgeous pop star in couture fashions (in this case, a Tom Ford gown), you can’t help but think the fashion bible needs more black friends. At least the cover story presents something new.
The Work singer finally addresses the rumors of a rivalry with Beyoncé. Writer Steff Yotka implies that the Internet started buzzing about a conflict between the two divas when Beyoncé’s Formation was released during Rihanna’s Anti album rollout. But we’ve heard murmurs about tension for as long as we can remember. And claims of a “rivalry” are often amplified by the fact that they’ve never collaborated on a song together and they take one tense picture together annually (either at the Met Gala or the Roc Nation brunch).
Rihanna is putting the gossip to rest once and for all, telling Vogue, “Here’s the deal. They just get so excited to feast on something that’s negative. Something that’s competitive. Something that’s, you know, a rivalry. And that’s just not what I wake up to. Because I can only do me. And nobody else is going to be able to do that.” Classy.
Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott /Vogue
She also speaks about getting bored with pop music and wearing glitter thongs on the red carpet.
Check out excerpts below:
On straying from her signature pop formula on Anti:
Had Rihanna gotten bored with the pop formula? “Very much,” the singer says. “I just gravitated toward the songs that were honest to where I am now.” From the first song, “Consideration,” a trip-hop collaboration with SZA, the message is clear. The chorus has Rihanna singing, “I got to do things my own way, darling.” It’s “like a PSA,” she tells me. She recognizes the risks: “It might not be some automatic record that will be Top 40. But I felt like I earned the right to do that now.”
On the glitter thong that never made it to the CFDA red carpet:
Just consider the dress she wore to accept the Fashion Icon Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2014: a sheer, Swarovski-encrusted fishnet number by Adam Selman that left little to the imagination. “I just liked it better without the lines underneath. Could you imagine the CFDA dress with a bra? I would slice my throat. I already wanted to, for wearing a thong that wasn’t bedazzled. That’s the only regret I have in life.” Wearing a thong that wasn’t bedazzled is your greatest regret in life? “To the CFDA awards. Yes.”
Rihanna, never change. To honor her general amazingness, Big Sean, Cara Delevingne, Kendall Jenner, Zendaya and more pay tribute to Work in the video below on Vogue.com:
