Rihanna shared in Vogue‘s May cover story about pregnancy, love and fashion, from her shunning of maternity wear to her cravings for tangerine with salt and chocolate-covered donuts, we’re stuck on her love story with A$AP Rocky. We never thought we’d see the day that she’d talk openly and in such a romantic way about any man, but the pop icon, billionaire businesswoman and mommy-to-be is in love, y’all. She’s just as surprised to have found it with A$AP as others are.
“People don’t get out of the friend zone very easily with me,” she told the magazine, as the two were former tour mates and friends who collaborated on her Fenty Skin brand. “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.”
Rihanna brought up the time they performed at the VMAs together in 2012 and the rapper pulled a brash move.
“He grabbed my a– on stage. That was not part of the rehearsal!” she recalled. “I was like, What are you doing!?” While she lightly pushed him away on stage, she chose not to harp on the moment. “My manager was like, Oh, God, she must like this guy a little bit. She never lets this sh-t slide.”
The like became evident though during the early days of the COVID pandemic, with the two partaking in a road trip from LA to NYC together in a tour bus.
“He became my family in that time,” she recalled. “I cooked our food on this little janky grill I bought from Walmart. I still have it, too. It works like nobody’s business.”
She added, “I love the simple things but also the grand adventures. There’s no pretentious my-brand-your-brand bullsh-t, it’s just us living. I just feel like I can do any part of life by his side.”
Things became more serious between the two during the holidays when he traveled to Barbados with her and met her family. With his own connections to the island in his late father, who emigrated to NYC from Barbados, he explored his father’s roots, too.
“It was us who were going home,” she says. “We were going home.”
She added, “My mother has a really good read on people. She observes first and then she’ll move slowly. I guess I’m like that too. There are some guys that I’ve dated that she won’t even look at to this day. But she was charmed by him from the jump.”
Now he’s in good with the family, and starting a family with the star (they even said I love you on a Facetime during the interview). What she appreciates about being with him is that they can be their most authentic selves.
“What I love the most about us? Transparency with everything: how we’re feeling, what our goals are, what our fears and insecurities are,” she said. “The vulnerability to be able to say what you feel about each other.”
And while she wouldn’t say they were “planning” to have a child (though they were “certainly not planning against it”), it’s a journey they’re happily on together.
“I always thought it would be marriage first, then a baby, but who the f–k says it has to be that way,” she said during the chat. “I’m certainly not gonna let that get in the way of me being a mom.”