Interview: Rihanna
Rihanna lets out a gorgeously naughty peal of laughter as she recalls her abiding memory of Katy Perry's hen's night. "Oh, lots of fake wieners!" Her face breaks into the cheekiest of grins. "Anything, anything you could think of was a dong! Necklaces, candy, balloons...we had a peenie-ata...we had an inflatable toy for the pool that was just one big penis!"
Clearly pleased with the aplomb with which she discharged her duties as Perry's party planner, Rihanna excitedly relives the timetable for the day: the penthouse suites with hot tubs at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas; messing around in the pool; ringside seats at the Cirque du Soleil show; and, finally, a strip club. But not any old strip club, she assures me. "We're very specific about the ones we like. I don't know how we pulled it off, but I think I throw the best bachelorette parties."
Rihanna is happy. No-one, not even a 22 year old familiar with the demands of pop stardom and a burgeoning film career (she's been shooting her first movie, Battleship, due for release later this year), has the right to look this fresh, be this relaxed, brimful of unbridled happiness.
Her friendship with Perry is telling. They met at an awards show, she recalls: "We ended up sitting next to each other, laughing at everything. I remember saying to myself, 'This girl has no edit button!' And that's what I loved about her."
Can the same be said of you?
She ponders for a moment then, almost thinking aloud, replies: "A lot less now. Before I would say I was really cautious about the information I would give out. But after certain things about your life start being revealed, you kind of don't care."
Is that since your relationship with Chris Brown ended?
"Yeah. So many things like that. The naked pictures. There was no innocence..." she trails off.
In May 2009, gossip websites worked themselves into a frenzy when a set of semi-nude photographs, taken in a hotel room on her mobile phone, found their way on to the internet. In one, the words "I love you" are written on the bathroom mirror. That the stolen images appeared not long before her ex-boyfriend, the singer Chris Brown, was about to plead guilty to the horrific assault on her three months earlier only served to mock what was already ruined.
"I don't know why that was so weird to people. Everyone sends their 'boo' something. I bet you do, too!" Rihanna says, indignantly, her Barbadian accent, both sweet and blunt, punching through her sentences. "It was easy to think that I didn't have depth or I didn't go through the real things that people go through in life, like taking naked pictures of myself. After that, you want to keep a certain amount of privacy, then there are certain things that don't make sense to hide."
Is that liberating?
"Definitely. It's actually so comfortable when you can just be yourself, speak your mind, the way you would whether people were around or not. Because it just makes you feel better. You go to bed sleeping better, you wake up feeling like yourself and you don't have to hide that from anyone."
Such is the level of Rihanna's fame, it's hard to believe it was less than four years ago that "Umbrella" transformed her into a global star. The hit single, taken from her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, helped push her album sales to more than 16 million.
Despite the success of her first two releases (Music Of The Sun in 2005 and the follow-up, A Girl Like Me), up until that point, there was little to suggest her musical legacy would amount to much more than two very catchy singles, "Pon de Replay" and "SOS". But those who questioned her staying power were not familiar with the inner resolve of Robyn Rihanna Fenty, whose childhood was scarred by her father's crack addiction, a nightmare she and her two younger brothers endured until their mother finally forced him out of the home. Rihanna was 14 at the time, still at Combermere School in Saint Michael, Barbados, spending her lunch breaks singing with two friends pretending to be Destiny's Child.
A year later, she would famously be discovered by American record producer Evan Rogers, who was holidaying on the island; a year after that, following her 16th birthday, Rihanna would relocate to the US, moving in with Rogers and his wife as plans to turn her into a recording artist gained pace. The determination has always been there.
Her most recent album, Loud - an up-beat and anthemic rallying call for girls everywhere - is a complete contrast to the fierce darkness of 2009's Rated R, and further evidence of Rihanna's renewed love of life.
Rihanna with best friend Katy Perry earlier this year.
"Whatever I'm feeling is reflected in my music," she says. Rated R came post-Brown, and in songs like "Cold Case Love" and "Russian Roulette" she chronicles the pain that relationship caused.
"Making Rated R definitely helped me to stay sane," she states, defiantly. "It helped me to get through a very confusing time. But things are really clear now."
It seems unjust that the events that took place on the evening of February 8, 2009, and the subsequent fallout should, through no fault of her own, have come to define Rihanna as much as her music. The facts are well documented: how Rihanna and Brown were driving through LA in his Lamborghini after a pre-Grammy party; how they had argued over a text he'd received from an ex-girlfriend; the brutal beating he gave her that became all the more real when the graphic affidavit was read out in court; the leaked police photograph of her face, bruised and bloodied. There would be their much-criticised reconciliation - pictured at Sean "Diddy" Combs's Miami home - until she decided there was no going back.
Finally, on June 22, Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault, and was sentenced to six months community labour and given a five-year probation. A restraining order was imposed, which requires him to stay 50 metres away from Rihanna, 10 metres if the pair are at an industry event.
But the facts seem almost irrelevant compared with the emotional turmoil Rihanna has suffered since. So much was said, written, broadcast about Rihanna and Brown in the ensuing months that you would think she would never want to re-examine that period again.
I expect the usual scripted response along the lines of there being nothing left to be said. What I don't expect is the rare level of honesty and personal insight Rihanna is willing to volunteer. What emerges is not only a unique picture of the reverse side of celebrity, but her desire to tell her story of domestic abuse, only too aware there are many others going through the same kind of suffering.
Are you a different person now?
"Yes," she answers with surety. "I was very lost. I felt really confused. It was really strange because..." her eyes begin to well and she scolds herself. "Aaagh!" she exclaims. "I hate talking about it, but it was really crazy because I felt so out of touch with myself when that happened.
"It's scary because nothing you say or do feels like it's you. You just lose touch of everything that you love and everything that you would normally do; how you would dress, or how you would say something. It just feels like it's not coming to you. It's just this one empty vase. I felt like an empty vessel."
Tears fall down her face, but she says it's alright to continue. "I'm just...I feel like...I smile for real this time. The smile comes from inside. People feel my energy is different. When I smile, they can tell it's pure bliss and not a cover-up. It's so weird for people to know you more than you know yourself. That was the worst part."
Did you resent the fact that this was your life and all of a sudden, it became so public?
"No," she replies, "because that was the only way I would have gotten out of that relationship. That's the only way you know. God has a crazy way of working and sometimes when stuff happens you feel like, 'What did I do to deserve this? Why was it backfiring on me?' But I needed that wake-up call in my life. I needed a turning point and that's what God was giving to me. In that time of darkness you just can't see it ever getting better and when it does it's such a great feeling because, you know, I would say every bad, negative thing that happened, or that was said about me or to me during that time - boy, do I thank them for that."
Why do you say that?
"Because it strips you all the way down. It's a humbling experience more than anything. You come out of it because you just become so strong when shit like that happens. All this terrible stuff they say to you, it breaks you down. Once you're back on your feet, that's the ultimate, ultimate achievement."
Rihanna never gave up hope of escaping the depths of despair she found herself in. "I knew there was going to be a day when I didn't feel like that anymore. So I was just riding it out and it came and it happened and then - it feels really, really good." She pauses, trying to compose herself. The relief that day brought is still apparent.
She begins to cry again, her voice cracked with emotion. "I couldn't have been the woman I am today, or the friend, or the sister, or the artist, or the role model I am today, if I didn't go through what I went through. You know whether you're going through that type of relationship or not, from the outside it's always easier to look at a situation for what it is. But being inside you're blinded and you can't see anything past what your heart feels. And that's what was going on. But, I mean, I have to say ...I have to say, when I ended it I still wasn't sure. You know, I just ended it because I knew it wasn't right. But I didn't end it in here yet." She punches her finger at her chest. "Eventually, I remember waking up one day and I knew I was over it. One day, I remember I was in New York at the Trump hotel and I woke up and I just knew I was over it. It was a different day. I felt like I wanted to get up and be in the world. That was a great, great feeling."
Rihanna at the 2010 American Music Awards.
That day, says Rihanna, she just walked and walked around the streets of New York and found herself remembering the innocent pleasures of any young woman: shopping, stopping at a cafe, more shopping. "From there, I just kept going inside, 'Just enjoy life.'"
With all that she's been through, some critics have questioned her recent appearance on the Eminem single, "Love The Way You Lie", and how, in their view, it glamorises domestic violence. Rihanna has no regrets. "[Eminem] confronted himself on it. He basically gives insight into what goes on in the mind of the couple in a domestically violent relationship. In every verse, it gets to a point where she wants to leave, she wants to leave, she leaves, but then the hook always comes back and it's like, 'I love it. I love it.' That's not what you think when it's happening. You know you don't like it, but you're staying, so it's almost like you must love it because you're not leaving.
"Every word in that song is true. It would take somebody who's been on the inside to understand how magical those lyrics are. Everybody loves the song, but the lyrics can never hit home until you've seen it, witnessed it in your home, or experienced it yourself."
Since early last year, she's been dating LA Dodgers baseball star Matt Kemp. Is she in love? Rihanna smiles again. "Yes," she says, then offers: "He's just easy and really kind."
Does she believe in destiny? "Definitely. And I never did before. The most important thing is to be happy and true to yourself. I don't want to look back 30 years from now and say, 'I did it all to make them happy and I didn't enjoy.' I want to be able to say people loved me because of who I am. People have a lot more respect for you [if] you let them see your imperfections. That's the big connection. The only difference between me and you is I make music. But I'm still a normal person."