Rihanna sat down for a rare interview with Voguein which she divulged intimate details about her pregnancy and relationship with A$AP Rocky. The couple announced they were expecting their first child together in January.
But the Barbadian singer and A$AP Mob rapper were friends for a long time before they took their friendship to the next level. As Rihanna explained, it was an uphill battle for Rocky to become her romantic partner.
“People don’t get out of the friend zone very easily with me,” she said. “And I certainly took a while to get over how much I know him and how much he knows me, because we also know how much trouble we can land each other in.”
A$AP Rocky and Rihanna had their first encounter at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards when he joined RiRi for a performance of “Cockiness,” a song title Rocky appeared to take literally.
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“He grabbed my ass on stage,” she remembered. “That was not part of the rehearsal! I was like, ‘What are you doing!?'” But rather than get upset, she let it go. “My manager was like, Oh, God, she must like this guy a little bit. She never lets this shit slide.”
As their relationship evolved, they became more serious as the COVID-19 pandemic began its rampage in March 2020.
“He became my family in that time,” she said. “I cooked our food on this little janky grill I bought from Walmart. I still have it, too. It works like nobody’s business. I love the simple things but also the grand adventures. There’s no pretentious my-brand-your-brand bullshit, it’s just us living. I just feel like I can do any part of life by his side.”
As A$AP Rocky and Rihanna prepare for their baby’s arrival, they have yet to reveal the gender — and they certainly won’t be doing it with a gender reveal party nor will they be participating in any kind of baby shower.
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“No brunch, no blush tones. And no animal-shaped nothing,” she said. “I mean it’s lit for a lot of people — I’ve even planned a couple of baby showers like that myself — it’s just not right for me. Personally, I want a party. I want everyone to be plastered and crawling out.
“And it’s got to be co-ed! Don’t put me on no wicker chair somewhere with gifts at my feet where everyone is staring at me. I asked my doctor: Is something wrong with me for not wanting this? Because people keep asking me. Am I a bad mom? When we’re ready to tell the world, we’ll just tell them.”
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Fans will have to continue waiting on the highly anticipated follow up to 2017’s ANTI, too. “I’m looking at my next project completely differently from the way I had wanted to put it out before,” she said. “I think this way suits me better, a lot better. It’s authentic, it’ll be fun for me, and it takes a lot of the pressure off.”
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For now, A$AP Rocky and Rihanna are juggling their careers while preparing for their baby. She recognized how lucky she is to have the resources available to her that weren’t available to her mother growing up.
“Balance is one of my biggest challenges and always has been,” she said. “And now there’s another human being coming into play, it changes what that means again. Still, I have businesses that aren’t going to run themselves. My mom handled the three of us with not even close to the amount of resources that I have, so I can absolutely do it. What it looks like? I’m not sure.”
