Rihanna, in her third trimester, has remodelled the approach to pregnancy fashion, and in her latest Vogue interview, the Barbados queen opened up a fair bit about the prenatal journey thus far, and, perhaps, offered fans more insight into her relationship with ASAP Rocky.
Rihanna Vogue interview: Here’s what she said
In January, Riri sent the internet into a frenzy when she and Rocky unveiled the baby bump in a ‘Harlem-aesthetic’ photo set. While, at first, speculation was rife about her gestation, Riri let it slip in the recent Vogue interview she did with writer Chioma Nnadi, that she is in her third trimester.
By all accounts, Rihanna is due another internet shutdown the day she delivers her first child which, in all likelihood, may be a matter of weeks.
In her interview, Riri confessed to taking a liking to chocolate dessert and her recently picked up addiction to salty tangerines.
“It has to be with salt and only with salt, because in Barbados we take our fruits to the ocean and soak them. Trust me, it really is a thing,” she chimed.
Here are more interesting key takeouts from her conversation with Nnadi:
Her edgy approach to pregnancy fashion
To say Riri’s prenatal journey has been polarising, is an understatement. The mom-to-be shifted discourse in high fashion, and challenged tradition and norms with a rule-breaking maternity style which included the all-revealing Dior cocktail frock she wore at the said fashion house’s Womenswear Fall/Winter 2022/2023 show in March; and, lest we forget, the gob-out lace-and-latex crop top she donned at the Gucci show in Milan, Italy.
“Rihanna is just so fearless, so for me it’s always a question of ‘How do we make this look make sense for who she is?’ ” her stylist Jahleel Weaver said in the interview.
Riri, reflecting on the furore she’s caused with her maternity style, simply shrugged off the idea that since she was pregnant, she had to dress a certain way.
“When I found out I was pregnant, I thought to myself, There’s no way I’m going to go shopping in no maternity aisle. I’m sorry—it’s too much fun to get dressed up. I’m not going to let that part disappear because my body is changing,” she said.
What pregnancy means to her
Speaking on her pregnancy journey, Rihanna admitted she “expected some magical change”.
“But really I remain who I am. None of the dials are turned down,” she added.
How she and ASAP Rocky ‘made it work’
Rocky may be one of the fewest men walking this earth who’ve miraculously made it out of the ‘friend zone’. For Rihanna, it was something she had never tolerated before.
“People don’t get out of the friend zone very easily with me,” she revealed.
But, as she later realised, a spark always existed between the two, and in retrospect, it may have come alive at the 2012 VMA Awards when, during a performance, Rocky had audaciously landed an ass-grab, something that took Riri aback.
Uncharacteristically, she never confronted that move, and her manager knew right then that “she must like this guy a little bit.”
About the one thing she loves the most about her relationship with Rocky, she said:
“What I love the most about us? Transparency with everything: how we’re feeling, what our goals are, what our fears and insecurities are. The vulnerability to be able to say what you feel about each other.”