Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, and their first child have graced the new cover of British Vogue, complete with an interview that sheds light on how the singer’s doing.
While she just headlined the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show over the past weekend, Rihanna faced some initial pushback. She had been previously critical of the organization for its treatment of Colin Kaepernick and turned down a performance opportunity in 2018.
“So what changed? There’s still a lot of mending to be done in my eyes, but it’s powerful to break those doors, and have representation at such a high, high level and a consistent level,” Rihanna explained about her decision to finally perform. “Two Super Bowls back-to-back, you know, representing the urban community, globally. It is powerful. It sends a really strong message.”
“Of course, raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life,” she added. “You’re like, ‘What am I leaving my kids to? This is the planet they’re gonna be living on?’ All of those things really start to hit differently.”
Rihanna admitted that she was approached again to headline shortly before the official announcement but waited to give them a direct answer.
“It’s this knowing that you can do anything, even things that seem the craziest, like, ‘I’m going to say yes to the Super Bowl in the middle of postpartum?’” Rihanna described, and, as we now know, she used the event to reveal her second pregnancy. “What the heck am I thinking? But you’re geeked on a challenge like that because you know what your body just did. You feel this sense of ‘Nothing is impossible.’ It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I have not been on stage in seven years. Seven years! From zero to Super Bowl? That’s mental.”