Rihanna
Dedicated with love to
Rob, Rick, Sim and Jonny
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1988: A STAR IS BORN
FIRST PERFORMANCE
ONE CHANCE TO IMPRESS
2006: A GIRL LIKE ME
GOOD GIRL GONE BAD
2008: RIHANNA, THE AMBASSADOR
CURTAIN’S FINALLY CLOSING
COUNTING THE COST
2009: THE ASSAULT
DATING AGAIN
DANGEROUS LOVE AFFAIR
SIMPLE THINGS
THE WAIT IS OVA
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
JUST THE WAY
TATTOOS
CHRISTMAS AT HOME
2010: INTRODUCING MATT
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RIHANNA!
FASHION
MEETING THE PARENTS
HEAR MY CRY
GOING RED
HELPING SHANNON
TOURING IN THE US – WITH KE$HA
KATY PERRY
YOU’RE SO AMAZING!
SAYING GOODBYE
CONTROVERSY
2011NEW YEAR, NEW AWARDS
NICKI AND KANYE
RIHANNA FIGHTS BACK AGAINST THE BULLIES
S & M
FORGIVENESS
NEW ROLES
THE LAST TIME
AMERICAN X FACTOR
YOU WERE SLEEPING NEXT TO ME
BRITNEY SPEARS
HOME
Plates
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Other books by Sarah Oliver:
Copyright
1988: A STAR IS BORN
Rihanna was born on 20 February 1988 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Saint Michael, Barbados. Saint Michael is on the southwest part of Barbados and is one of eleven parishes. She was the first child of Monica and Ronald Fenty and was loved by her entire extended family. By then, her parents had been married for three years and they gave her the name Robyn Rihanna Fenty.
On the day she came into the world, Kylie Minogue’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ was at No. 1 in the UK, and Exposé’s ‘Seasons Change’ was No. 1 in the US.
Robyn is the female form of the name Robert and means ‘bright fame’. It turned out to be an appropriate name for their beautiful baby girl. The meaning of Rihanna is ‘sweet basil’. Rihanna was known as Robyn throughout her childhood, and her family and friends still call her by this name. When her singing career was about to take off, she decided to use her middle name, Rihanna. If she is out and about today and hears someone shout ‘Robyn!’, she might turn around to see if they are talking to her. When people shout ‘Rihanna!’ at her, it rarely registers; people do this all the time, and sometimes she forgets they may be talking to her, because her family, friends, crew, dancers and all those close to her call her Robyn.
When she was growing up, her mum Monica was an accountant and her father Ronald worked as a warehouse supervisor, although they both changed their jobs as she got older. They lived in a small house on Westbury New Road in Bridgetown. Bridgetown is the capital of Barbados, and Rihanna’s house was only minutes away from the Kensington Oval cricket ground and the Deep Water Harbour, which is the international seaport of Barbados.
She soon became a big sister when her brother Rorrey was born, in November 1990. (If you want to, you can follow Rorrey on Twitter – just go to twitter.com/RorreyFenty.) From a young age, Rorrey and Rihanna spent a lot of time on the beaches near their home. They were just a short walk away from the idyllic Brandons beach, and Brighton, Paradise and Batts Rock beaches were also nearby. Their father taught them how to catch fish, and they had lots of cousins to play with. Rihanna told the Sunday Herald Sun: ‘[The house] where I lived in Saint Michael was literally 30 metres from the beach… it was perfect – a paradise – and we took it for granted. Basically, we woke up on a vacation every day.’
They got another brother in April 1997, when little Rajad was born. Rihanna loved mothering him, as she was nine years old when he was born, so he made the perfect doll for her to play with.
The girl who grew up in the house opposite was very close to Rihanna when they were growing up, and even now still lives in the same house with her family. Growing up, Rihanna and Shakira shared a special bond, and people could have mistaken them for sisters because of the amount of time they spent playing together. Rihanna might be a millionaire now, but Shakira is not, and today she works in a call centre. She has a little girl called Elisha and lives with her mum.
Rihanna, Rorrey and Rajad had a different ancestry to most of their friends when they were growing up, because their mother’s side of the family originally came from Guyana in South America, while their father’s relatives came from Barbados and Ireland. They were paler than the other kids, and Rihanna in particular was bullied by some of the children at her school: they liked to say she was white. Rihanna admitted to Allure magazine: ‘I was a little confused as a kid, because I grew up with my mum, and my mum is black. So I was cultured in a very “black” way. But when I go to school, I’m getting called “white”. They would look at me and would curse me out. I didn’t understand. I just knew I saw people of all different shades and I was light. Now I’m in a much bigger world.’
Rihanna and Rorrey might have liked a lot of the same things when they were growing up, but it was Rihanna who had a passion for singing. She would lie on her bed and sing her favourite songs. Her father first caught her singing to herself when she was three years old, using her hairbrush as a microphone.
By the time she was six, Rihanna had decided that when she grew up she wanted to be a singer, and she would sing and perform whenever she could. She would perform for her cousins when they visited her, for her toys and even for the pillows on her bed. Her neighbours could hear her singing in the shower, and they gave her the nickname ‘Robyn Red Breast’ because she was always singing, like a bird. Her favourite songs were ‘Saving All My Love For You’ by Whitney Houston, and ‘A Whole New World’ from Disney’s Aladdin. When she was seven, her family and neighbours realised that she had an exceptional voice talent, and her father thought that she had inherited her musical genes from his parents, who were good singers (Ronald and Monica were in no way singers themselves!).
Singing helped keep Rihanna’s mind off her troubles. She might have had fun playing with Rorrey, but sometimes at night she would lie in bed and try to stop herself from drifting off to sleep: she was scared of what her father would do to her mother if she herself went to sleep.
During one violent row, Rihanna tried to stop Ronald from hurting Monica by smashing a bottle to distract him. She hated the fact that he hurt her mother physically as well as emotionally, and she felt she couldn’t tell people what was going on, even when her father broke her mum’s nose. Monica didn’t go to hospital and wouldn’t report what was going on to the police. Rihanna just kept her feelings locked deep inside herself, and vowed never to marry someone violent. She didn’t even cry, although she was hurting very badly inside.
When she turned eight, things got really bad for Rihanna, and she suffered from terrible headaches. She was taken to see the doctor, who tried to find out the cause, and for a while they thought she might have a brain tumour because she was in so much pain. It turned out that the headaches were caused by the stress Rihanna was under, because of the arguments and fights her parents were having, but of course no-one knew that at the time.
Her father was addicted to crack cocaine, and this caused many arguments and fights between her parents. He would disappear into the bathroom for ages, and little Rihanna didn’t understand what was going on. When she was nine, she caught him smoking crack and told her mum. She had pe
ered through a gap, saw him taking it and was terribly scared, because she knew he was doing something wrong. Both Rihanna and her mother cried in desperation at the situation. Today, Rihanna’s dad greatly regrets what he put his family through, but at the time he would disappear for days when he was on drugs, leaving Monica to look after Rihanna and her brothers on her own. Monica kicked him out of the house a few times because of his drug-taking and the violence he inflicted on her.
Monica used to think that Ronald might end up living like a homeless man because of his drug-taking. His habit was well known and people would call him a ‘parrow’, which means ‘freeloader’ and ‘junkie’. In Barbados, this is one of the worst names you can be called by people you know. The wider Bajan community had no respect for him, and just saw him as a waste of space.
In some ways Rihanna now feels sorry for her father, because he grew up knowing what it’s like to be beaten by someone who is supposed to love you. When he was a young boy, his stepfather would beat him, and his mother didn’t prevent it. This resulted in Ronald feeling some resentment towards Monica and women in general. In a way he punished his wife for his mother’s mistakes. Rihanna knows what happened to her father as he was growing up, but she feels that doesn’t excuse what he did to her mum.
When Rihanna was fourteen, her mum and dad divorced. Almost immediately, Rihanna’s headaches stopped, and she could just get on with enjoying life without worrying about what was going to happen next. Monica was the best mum Rihanna could have asked for, and although she struggled to make ends meet at times, she always put Rihanna, Rorrey and Rajad first. She didn’t let them know how poor they were, and would still find the money for Rihanna to have a perm every month, no matter what. Although her mum didn’t realise it at the time when she split up with Rihanna’s father, her daughter felt a huge sense of relief.
Monica is the person that Rihanna is closest to in the whole world. She has influenced her a great deal, and Rihanna wouldn’t be the woman she is today without her. When she was growing up, people would tell Rihanna that she looked like her mother, but she never believed them and would pull a face. Back then, she didn’t want to look like Monica, but now she is proud to take after her, and when Rihanna sees herself on TV she can see the resemblance. She uses the same facial expressions as Monica sometimes and knows that she’s just like her mum.
While Rihanna was attending Charles F. Broome Memorial School, a primary school ten minutes away from her home, she continued to dream about being a professional singer. She didn’t just want to be famous in Barbados, though: she wanted to become an international superstar. She kept her dreams to herself, of course, but would pray to God that one day she would be able to tour the world. She was quite body conscious for a girl of her age and when she was eight, she decided that she didn’t look right: she was eager to have curves like her mom and told Monica that she wanted ‘triangular’ thighs like her. Also, she adored wearing pink clothes so much that people gave her the nickname ‘Pinky’.
Rihanna loved dancing as well as singing, and many people thought she would become a dancer. She was quite open about her love of dancing, whereas she kept relatively quiet about her singing at school. Every day she would go to her cousin, who was a teacher at Charles F. Broome Memorial School, and ask if she could borrow her classroom at lunchtime. Every lunchtime she would be in there, practising singing and dancing with her ‘Barbie Doll Group’ as they listened to the radio. Rihanna was their choreographer and they would copy her dance moves. They would all have perfume on because they liked to smell good, and wearing perfume made them feel grown-up.
Rihanna loved sport too and was in the Red House school team. Her teacher cousin, who she called ‘Auntie’, was in the Blue House. Rihanna would tease ‘Auntie’ every day, because she was convinced that her house were going to win whenever there was a sporting event. Even when they didn’t, she would still say that Red House was better than Blue! Her cousin, ‘Auntie’, still works at the school and teaches one of the reception classes.
Rihanna and her one female cousin grew up with 15 boys in the family, so she was always a bit of a tomboy. However, she became interested in make-up and would ask her mum for advice, because Monica had changed jobs and was now a make-up advisor in a department store.
Make-up had fascinated Rihanna from an early age, but she was never allowed to wear it because she was too young. As soon as her mum left for work, though, she’d sneak a look at her make-up collection and experiment all she wanted, without getting caught. It was through watching her mum apply her make-up every day that Rihanna discovered how to do her own make-up. She says the best make-up advice she ever got from her mum was how to do her lips without showing the lip-liner. At the same time, she also learned about different perfumes and what she should do to look after her skin: she knows that getting plenty of sleep and drinking lots of water helps her skin look refreshed.
When Rihanna was four years old, she got into big trouble: she used her mum’s nail varnish to give herself colourful drawn-on bracelets up her arm, and then poured what was left into her brother’s toy builder’s hat. She didn’t realise that the nail varnish wouldn’t come off for ages beca use they didn’t have any remover!
When she got older, Rihanna moved to Combermere School, one of the top high schools in Barbados. In her spare time she would sell things from a stall outside a shop. She would find items that people might want – such as gorgeous scarves, stylish hats and accessories – and sell them to passers-by. At school Rihanna sold sweets to the other students and made a little money that way; she would also braid girls’ hair for cash.
She wasn’t interested in acting in school plays or anything like that while in high school, and instead concentrated on singing and doing well in class. Her teacher Mrs Goring told 4Music: ‘She was a well-behaved student, who did her work well, never got into trouble.’ She did join in, though, if the whole class was misbehaving – of course, she wasn’t good 100 per cent of the time! Her teacher thought she was going to be a model, because she moved like one every time she walked down the corridor, and she was always one of the best dressed whenever there was a party.
As well as singing and dancing, whenever she had the chance Rihanna wrote poetry. She then began penning song lyrics, and was inspired by reggae artists such as Spice Cartel, Damian Marley and Sizzla, as well as the pop and R&B music of Whitney Houston, Beyoncé and Mariah Carey. For a time her mum ran a reggae club, which meant Rihanna was surrounded by music; she also loved listening to songs on the radio.
While at school, Rihanna enrolled in the Cadet Corp, a sub-military programme. The singer Shontelle was her drill sergeant back then, and Rihanna wanted to be the best cadet. She gave it everything she had, and being a tomboy certainly helped, because she didn’t care how hard it got or how much Shontelle and the other drill sergeants pushed her.
Things changed when she met Melissa…
Melissa Forde moved to Rihanna’s high school when she was fourteen, and the two quickly became best friends. Becoming friends with Melissa made Rihanna more interested in fashion and make-up, as Melissa was by no stretch of the imagination a tomboy. Every Friday, Rihanna, Melissa and their group of friends would have sleepovers, then head for the beach on Saturday or go shopping. In the evening they’d make their way to the club ‘The Boatyard’ to dance.
Her new best friend wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries, and wore make-up to school, even though this wasn’t allowed. Her hair was dyed blonde, which made her stand out because the other black girls in the school had dark hair. She would hang around at Rihanna’s house and the two of them would look at Melissa’s older sister’s magazines for fashion advice. It wasn’t long after she met Melissa that Rihanna decided she didn’t want to be a tomboy cadet any more – she wanted to start acting like a girl.
RiRi told Vogue: ‘When I was 14 and first started going out, I always wanted to be the opposite of everyone else. So I would go to the club in a polo T-shirt and pants a
nd sneakers and a hat on backward, just so I would not be dressed like other girls.
‘And I got desperate for things that weren’t available in Barbados. I would cut things out of magazines. I was obsessed with creating a visual with clothing, and the way things are combined.’
Rihanna’s first relationship with a boy was in high school. She confessed to Rolling Stone: ‘My first kiss was in high school, and it was the worst thing ever. He pretty much dumped his entire saliva glands into my mouth. It traumatized me. I didn’t kiss [again] for, like, ever.’
Melissa is still Rihanna’s best friend to this day. They are so close that they have each other’s birth dates as tattoos on their shoulders, and can tell each other everything. Nowadays Melissa is RiRi’s official ‘personal assistant’ and so she travels everywhere with her, gives her fashion advice, helps Rihanna to organise her time, and is often her sounding board when she has an idea about something. When she has boyfriend issues she can count on Melissa to be there for her and help her through it. Melissa didn’t have a problem about leaving her own family and friends behind in Barbados because she knows how much Rihanna relies on her. In fact, Melissa is one of only a handful of people Rihanna can trust 100 per cent.
FIRST PERFORMANCE
When she was fifteen Rihanna decided to enter a talent show at her school. She might have been singing from when she was three years old, but she had always kept it a secret from the kids at school. Her family had been encouraging her because she was really good, and so Rihanna decided to go for it. She was the youngest girl in the competition but her voice more than made up for it: the other girls might have been two years older but they weren’t as talented as Rihanna. She sang ‘Hero’ by Mariah Carey and owned the stage. Indeed, she wasn’t put off by the number of people in the auditorium and walked around with confidence. ‘Hero’ is a difficult song to sing, but Rihanna wanted to perform a challenging number rather than an easy one. If you haven’t seen the video of her performance, you can check it out on YouTube. Back then, she never even thought about having a singing coach, but she still managed to hit the high notes.