Rihanna (9 page)

The first single that Rihanna released from
Rated R
was ‘Russian Roulette’. Released on 3 November 2009, it reached No. 9 in the US and Canada charts. It did better in Switzerland, Norway and Slovakia, where it topped the charts, and it made it to No. 2 in the UK.

Rihanna explained what the song was about to the Associated Press. She said: ‘For me it was about being in a relationship and being afraid of getting hurt in the end, which is kind of the same feeling you go through playing the game of Russian roulette. You know that somebody could get hurt in the end and you’re just terrified that it’s going to be you. So when I said I’m terrified but I’m not leaving, then it means: I’m scared I’m gonna get hurt, but I’m in love so I’m not going to leave.’

Anthony Mandler was the director of the video, and he was the one who came up with the concept of having Rihanna imprisoned, interrogated, shot at underwater and run over, as well as having her play Russian roulette in the video with a gun. All in all, the video took two days to shoot. Before it came out, he confessed to journalist Jocelyn Vena: ‘I think that with this song and the meaning of this song and how loaded it all is, no pun intended, how much imagery and perhaps symbolism that is loaded in this song, the only way to do it was to do something that was visually challenging.’

The scenes between Rihanna and her lover in the video were intentionally of secondary importance: ‘I think our objective was to run down our lane with it and to step out of the drama and the gossip, to get deeper and be more symbolic.’

The video was up for the Best Female Video award at the 2010 MTV Japan Video Music Awards, but it was beaten by the Japanese R&B singer Namie Amuro’s track ‘New Look’.

O
n 9 November 2009, Rihanna was honoured at
Glamour
Magazine’s Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall, New York, alongside 11 other amazing women. She wore a gorgeous mermaid-style gown by the designer Stéphane Rolland that wasn’t very practical, as she struggled to walk in it, but it looked amazing.

As her tribute video played, Rihanna couldn’t help shedding a tear or two as she stood on stage. She told the audience: ‘I couldn’t possibly make it up here in this dress. As usual, I decided to wear the tightest dress I could find.’

She couldn’t climb the stairs onto the stage because of the dress, and instead entered from backstage, not that anyone minded. Rihanna’s award was presented by Iman, David Bowie’s wife, who is a model, actress and successful
businesswoman; Iman explained why Rihanna was picking up the Woman of the Year award by saying: ‘This year we saw a different face of Rihanna – she’s an indelible image of worldly pain and now, more than ever, I am more than impressed with her honesty and courage. She has taken her own scars and used them to create a new story of strength and awareness.’ But Rihanna wasn’t given the award just because of the way she handled herself after her attack, but because of what she had achieved musically, and for all the great work she had done for children’s charities.

In her thank-you speech, Rihanna said: ‘I am shaking right now, I am so nervous but I am overwhelmed and honoured over this honour to be
Glamour
’s Woman of the Year.’ She also revealed that she had only just started thinking of herself as being a woman since she turned 21 and that she enjoyed being at an event to celebrate strong women. Her mum and her gran were her own ‘Women of the Year’, and she was so thankful to them, she continued. Indeed, she had flown in her family from Barbados so they could be at the event with her and help her celebrate.

It might have cost $50,000 to fly her mum, grandmother, brothers and aunts to New York, but it was worth every cent to Rihanna, as she loved introducing her family to Tyra Banks, Serena Williams and Stella McCartney after the awards ceremony. They then went on to the South Gate restaurant in the exclusive Essex House hotel for a meal together. She had been so busy promoting the album and
‘Russian Roulette’ that it was nice for Rihanna to just chill out and enjoy spending time with her family while they were in the US.

W
ait Your Turn’ was originally going to be the second single that Rihanna released from
Rated R
, but her record label decided to release ‘Hard’ instead. Rihanna helped write this track with songwriters Tor Erik Hermansen, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Saul Milton, Takura Tendayi, Will Kennard and James Fauntleroy II. It was available to download from 13 November 2009, four days after the Woman of the Year ceremony.

A few seconds of the song were used in the promotional video for the album before it was released. Fans liked it and began downloading it in November once the album was available. It charted at No. 32 in Ireland, No. 45 in the UK and No. 82 in Australia.  

The music video was shot in black and white by Anthony Mandler. It was filmed at night and has a Gothic feel to it,
as Rihanna sings while walking down a street wearing an eye patch; she is also seen in a church and standing on a statue. Hip-hop videos of the 90s were the inspiration for the video.

R
ihanna has lots of tattoos, all over her body. On her neck she has ‘rebelle fleur’ (which means rebellious flower); she’s also got a cascade of stars which run from the nape of her neck and go down her right shoulder. She had it done in two stages. Inside her left ear she has a tiny star and behind her right ear is the Pisces zodiac symbol. The Pisces symbol was done by a famous Brazilian tattooist who normally has a waiting list of three years, but he was able to do the tattoo for RiRi when they were both in Toyko.

On the top of her left shoulder she has her best friend Melissa’s birth date in roman numerals: ‘XI IV LXXXVI’ (11 April 86), and on her right shoulder are the words ‘Never a failure, always a lesson’ written backwards. She has a small handgun on the right-hand side of her ribcage, which she says symbolises protection. Originally she had planned to
have gun tattoos on both arms, but was unable to do so because she is the face of the make-up brand CoverGirl.

On the left-hand side of her ribcage she has ‘Al Hurria fi Al Maseeh’, which means ‘Freedom in God’ in Arabic. Down her right hip she wanted a Sanskrit prayer, which said ‘Forgiveness, Honesty, Suppression and Control’ but it was spelled incorrectly! Rihanna still likes it, though.

On her left ankle she has a skull and crossbones, with the skull wearing a red bow. She had this tattoo done in Miami. Currently she has three tattoos on her hands: the word ‘Love’ on the third finger of her left hand, a tribal pattern on her right hand and ‘Shhh’ on the index finger of her right hand (Lindsay Lohan and Lily Allen both got a ‘Shhh’ tattoo after Rihanna had hers done!).

Her tribal pattern tattoo was acquired while she was touring in New Zealand, and she opted for a Maori geometric design. At a UNICEF event in New York, she revealed to journalists from
People
magazine that it hurt a lot, but: ‘It’s tribal, it represents strength and love. It’s their traditional way of tattooing – I always wanted [one].’

RiRi’s favourite tattoo has to be either the gun on her ribcage, or her ‘Never a failure, always a lesson’ tattoo on her shoulder blade.

However, RiRi got in trouble when she decided to become a tattooist herself. She had been spending some time in her favourite tattoo parlour, the East Side Ink, with some friends and her bodyguard. She’s had a lot of her tattoos done by the tattoo artist BangBang (real name Keith McCurdy) and when she has days off, she likes to
go there and talk to him and the other tattooists who work there. He was the one who did her tattoo of Melissa’s birth date, her gun, some of her stars and the ‘Shhh’ tattoo on her finger. After they had been there a few hours, in a big role reversal BangBang suggested she gave him a tattoo.

Rihanna agreed, because she loves tattoos and he’s become a good friend to her over the years. He showed her what she needed to do, and she decided to draw him a little ‘Umbrella’, with the letter ‘R’ underneath on his leg. She did an amazing job, considering it was her first time.

After she’d finished she did two more tattoos on BangBang’s colleagues. On Josh Lord’s leg, she tattooed ‘R 2’ and on Patrick Conlon’s arm, she tattooed ‘R 3’. They posed for photos and after Rihanna left, she thought nothing more of it.

She had no idea that she had broken the law until the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced they were investigating what happened. In a statement they said: ‘Only licensed tattoo artists can administer tattoos in the city according to the City’s Health Code. We are sending someone to follow up on this.’

Her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown is a big tattoo fan and he decided to follow RiRi’s example a few weeks later, by tattooing BangBang himself. Both Chris and BangBang knew they would get in trouble because Chris didn’t have a licence, and so they drove from New York to another state, where it was legal.

Chris decided to draw a cartoon face and wrote ‘Bang’ above it. BangBang thought that he did a better job than RiRi but when you compare the two tattoos, hers is by far the most tasteful. He has now decided that he wants more celebrities to tattoo him, and so he might be driving out of state quite regularly to get new inkings. At least Rihanna will be able to say she was the trendsetter and not a copycat!

Two months after Rihanna gave BangBang his tattoo, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene finished their investigation and the tattoo parlour was fined, though not for the Rihanna incident. A representative told MTV: ‘Yes, a violation was issued to East Side Ink after an inspector found the parlour operating with an unlicensed tattoo artist on the site. All Health Code violations can range in fines between $200 and $2,000.

‘Rihanna was not found at the parlour when the Health Department inspector followed up. The Health Department received a call about Rihanna, sent out an inspector; Rihanna was not at the site, the inspector conducted an inspection of the parlour and found an unlicensed tattoo artist operating on the premises – the Health Department issued a violation to the parlour for this unlicensed tattoo artist.’

In the run-up to Christmas 2009, RiRi had a new tattoo etched on the right-hand side of her collarbone, which reads ‘Never a failure, always a lesson’ backwards, so that when she looks in a mirror it is the right way round. The tattoo was done by BangBang, who revealed to OK! Weekly: ‘She told me in advance she’d be coming, and then
when she got there, she told me what she wanted: “Never a failure, always a lesson,” but written backwards.

‘I asked her why she wanted that and she said, “It’s kind of my motto in life for everything. Instead of considering things to be mistakes, considering them lessons.’

She asked him to use grey ink rather than the standard black because it’s a personal tattoo, rather than one she wants people to notice. As he explained: ‘She wanted it to be more subtle, she didn’t want it to draw too much attention.’

Rihanna is constantly getting new tattoos and confessed to
InStyle
magazine: ‘My favourite thing is to be in New York, jump in a cab – on my own, no security – go to Sixth Avenue between Bleecker and Houston, and hang out in the tattoo parlours. It’s a whole different culture.’

During an AOL interview, fans were invited to suggest questions they wanted Rihanna to answer, and Paul Beadle asked: ‘Don’t you think you’ll regret all those tattoos when you’re 70?’

But Rihanna didn’t take offence and replied: ‘Ask me when I am 70. I don’t know but I don’t think so. You think the gun might begin to sag when I get older? Well, I’ll have to deal with that. They are personal messages to myself and they are meant forever. The tiny gun is indicative of power and protection. I did have a big one on my leg, but that wasn’t a permanent one. It’s not about violence. I have never used a weapon in a violent way and I don’t intend to. What will my next tattoo be? A missile? No, it will be writing, I think. I’m really into writings. Someone was telling me about some
writing on an Erykah Badu album sleeve called
Mama’s Gun.
Its words and sayings are as powerful as a weapon. Maybe I’ll have those next.’

R
ihanna jetted home to Barbados to spend Christmas 2009 with her family. She might have seen them in November, but she still couldn’t wait to catch up with them and find out what she’d missed. On her official website, she thanked her fans for supporting her throughout 2009 by writing: ‘To all my fans, thank you for being amazingly supportive and loyal this year. Happy Holidays to you and your families.’

Rihanna spent Christmas Day on the beach with her family. She wore a stunning hot pink bikini, accessorised with a headband and large hoop earrings. The paparazzi will do anything to get photos of RiRi 24/7, even at Christmas. In the past they have even hidden in rocks in the middle of the ocean to get some shots of her; the first time Rihanna realised they had been there was when she
saw the photos in an article. Seeing the images shocked her because she hadn’t noticed the press, and from the angle they were taken she knew they must have been hiding in the rocks, quite far out from the beach.

After relaxing with her family on the beach for a few hours she changed into a black dress and went to a party at Kensington Oval cricket ground.

Rihanna was working on New Year’s Eve and she flew to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. She did a
two-hour
set on the lawns of the Emirates Palace Hotel in front of 10,000 fans, who each paid £66 to see the New Year in with her. After singing her biggest hits and ending with a rendition of ‘Umbrella’, she did the big countdown and celebrated with the audience and her friend, baseball player Matt Kemp, who had come along to support her. He was to become her boyfriend in the weeks that followed. The party continued until the early hours in a huge tent.

The organiser of the event, John Lickrish, told the press: ‘Tonight was a huge success and a truly memorable way to end a great year for Flash [Entertainment] and Abu Dhabi. Rihanna’s performance left us all breathless and set a very high benchmark for next year.’

Rihanna must have been excited to see what 2010 would bring, after the troubles she had had in 2009. She set herself a huge list of New Year’s resolutions: she wanted to start getting up early, stop being late for things, cut down on her shopping trips, learn to play the drums and see more of her mum and family. Musically, she wanted to work with Depeche Mode. She chatted to Nova FM about
her dream collaboration: ‘I wanna work with Depeche Mode or The Prodigy – I really love their style. I love the new Prodigy album, they really inspired me with their style. I really got into the dubstep and that whole underground sound, the grimy sound and aggressive lyrics; I was really glad to hear that.’

Sadly, she hasn’t had her wish to work with Depeche Mode or The Prodigy granted yet, but you never know. When Rihanna wants something, she generally gets it!