AS one of the world’s most successful pop stars, and a billionaire businesswoman too, there is little Rihanna can’t turn her hand to.
The A-list beauty even holds a formal role as a tourism and education ambassador in her native Barbados — and as a National Hero of the Caribbean island too, she is entitled to call herself The Right Excellent for the rest of her life.
But despite her astonishing achievements and wealth, the 33-year-old star’s biggest challenge still looks like the one ahead of her — after she revealed she is pregnant by her controversial rapper boyfriend A$AP Rocky.
Alongside becoming a mum for the first time, Rihanna will be bidding to keep the hip-hop wild man on the straight and narrow after his years of legal problems, sex addiction and a shocking feud with Rita Ora, played out in sickeningly explicit lyrics.
As one music insider put it: “The baby won’t be the only thing that needs a watchful eye on it.”
‘He is a talent but a livewire too’
Rihanna and Rocky, a member of the A$AP Mob hip-hop collective, announced their baby news yesterday with a striking series of photographs in which she bared her growing bump in a flowing open pink coat and jewellery, despite the New York snow.
Her father, Ronald, later spoke of how Rihanna had told family members the weekend before she made the snaps public, and he added: “I’ve met A$AP Rocky, he’s a very cool guy.”
Indeed, he has established himself as one of hip- hop’s brightest stars, working with acts as diverse as Rod Stewart, Mark Ronson, Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
He has had two US Billboard No1 albums, and a third that reached No3, each achieving platinum sales and proving global successes, thanks to tracks such as Praise The Lord, Everyday and F*in’ Problems.
He has also become a critical success, winning several major awards, with two Grammy nominations, five MTV Awards nominations and four BET Award wins.
He and Rihanna have been dating since 2020, with the rapper — real name Rakim Athelaston Mayers — said to have been quietly “infatuated” by Rihanna for several years when they were just close pals.
During that time she had relationships with rappers Drake and Travis Scott as well as Saudi businessman Hassan Jameel.
Snaps of her and Rocky on a romantic holiday in late 2020 confirmed their relationship — but also raised eyebrows among fans after his string of recent legal issues.
They include a short jail term in Sweden in 2019 after a vicious assault which saw a man struck with a bottle, punched and kicked.
The attack was not Rocky’s first brush with the law. In 2006 he served a short spell in New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail for drug dealing.
Six years later he was arrested twice in quick succession — once over allegations he had been involved in a Manhattan brawl, and again a few days later after he allegedly assaulted two photographers who claimed to have snapped him taking illegal drugs in a New York clothes shop.
A 2013 incident saw Rocky accused of slapping a woman during a music festival in Philadelphia, with the pair settling a lawsuit two years later.
Then in 2016 he was involved in a punch-up in New Zealand, and in 2019 a shocking video showed Rocky holding a bottle and shouting at a man who was kneeling on the ground and holding his face.
A music source said: “This guy is a talent, but he is a livewire too, and the real question here is whether he can leave all of these incidents behind him and focus on starting a family, or whether they will flare up again.
“He’s totally besotted with Rihanna, there’s no doubt about that. He’s barely left her side in two years and he knows this is the real deal, and she’s a very strong person herself.
“She won’t stand for nonsense, but once a baby is in the mix he is going to have to dramatically change his behaviour.”
Rocky’s wild and at times troubled background began at an early age, with his father jailed for selling drugs when he was just 12, and his brother murdered a year later.
By 13 he was “having orgies” on his lunch break with up to 15 schoolmates.
He later revealed: “Our school was three blocks away, and they used to let us out for lunch, for 45 minutes. The first time was in this apartment building. We took the elevator to the roof, and everybody put their coats on the ground.
“There were five girls and ten guys, and we all just took turns. Lot of orgies. I’ve photographed and documented many of them. “The women I’m around are into that free-spirited s**t like me.
“These are things people like to stay away from, that they don’t like to admit. But I can’t be embarrassed about it.
“I wear my heart on my sleeve. I won’t do nothing that I’m not proud speaking of. So they get with a guy like me. They know I don’t want to break their hearts or nothing.
“And why not? Let’s smoke some good weed in the teepee and have a fun time.” Rocky’s highly sexualised behaviour has also seen him accused of being derogatory and sexist towards women.
‘He clearly thinks a lot of his appeal to ladies’
That included writing a viciously barbed song aimed at former flame Rita Ora, in which he graphically described oral sex together and criticised her performance in bed.
Rita later hit back on US radio, telling an interviewer: “I don’t care what you say about me. I don’t give a flying f***. That’s just how it is. I’m very happy with what I do and I’m proud of who I am and what I represent.”
Rocky went on to date Kendall Jenner, though it didn’t last.
“But a year later his sex life was back in the spotlight when an X-rated home video appeared on online adult website PornHub — with fans quickly trolling Rocky’s sexual prowess as “disappointing”.
The jibes prompted a typically fiery reaction from the rapper, who insisted that “a long list of satisfied women” could attest to his talents in bed.
An industry source added: “In the rap world, highly sexualised lyrics and imagery is common, and he seemed more bothered about the idea that someone had suggested he wasn’t great in bed than the thought of his sex tape being leaked.
“He clearly thinks a great deal of his appeal to ladies, but he’ll have met his match if he’s going to hold on to one of the world’s sexiest and most successful women.
“Rihanna has every reason to be extremely confident about her own sex appeal. It will be interesting to see if he can cope with being on the back foot a bit for once.”
Rihanna has amassed a business empire which dwarfs his, despite his estimated £10million net worth. Rihanna’s Fenty beauty brand was launched in 2017 and brought in more than £500million in its first year.
Thanks to it, and other investments and ventures, wealth bible Forbes has branded her the world’s wealthiest female musician and the second richest woman in showbiz after Oprah Winfrey, with a £1.2billion value.
Since Rocky began dating Rihanna he is said to have dramatically scaled up his own health and fitness regime. But it remains to be seen if he has truly cleaned up the rest of his act.
