Trivia / Rihanna

• Approval of God: Marc Almond of Soft Cell loved the sampling of "Tainted Love" on "SOS", and said that it helped him get over his dislike of the song.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Why she did Battleship and Valerian.
• Banned in China: The video for "S&M", due to showing the very content the song is about.
• Creator Backlash: She's mentioned several times that she really hates her debut single "Pon de Replay".
• Creator Breakdown: Even before she went seriously Darker and Edgier, after Chris Brown assaulted her she appeared on a Vogue shoot bound and muzzled.
  • Rated R was her deciding to face her fears and deal with what happened with Chris. She was going to take a break but decided to do music instead.
  • Talk That Talk is like a second half of Rated R continuing to deal with the problems brought up by that album.
  • Then comes the "We Found Love" video, which features an Opening Narration about how sometimes you're willing to take the bad parts of a relationship because the good parts are just so good. Then the first half of the video depicts scenes of happy romance and misadventures of Rihanna and a Chris Brown lookalike, while the second half shows the fights that erupted after the happy parts of all those scenes.
• Creator Couple:
  • With Chris Brown when they recorded a version of "Bad Girl" and obviously before the domestic violence incident.
  • With the news that Drake admitted to dating her from sometime between 2009-2013, one or both of her collaborations with him during this period ("What's My Name" from 2010 and "Take Care" from 2012) can fall into this trope.
• Cut Song: "Bitch Better Have My Money", "FourFiveSeconds", and "American Oxygen" were cut from the final release of ANTI. For some music reviewers, this was for the better as they felt the the songs would have caused Mood Whiplash with the generally slow and moody tone of the album.
• Doing It for the Art: The main reason for ANTI taking much longer than her previous albums to complete. Rihanna has stated that she wanted to make "timeless" music that she would still want to perform decades later.
  "I had no idea how [ANTI] would be received, neither was that something I considered. I just wanted to make a body of work that felt right!"
• Dye Hard: Although her natural hair color is brown, Rihanna usually dyes hers black. It was red most of the time when she released Loud.
• Fan Community Nickname: Rihanna's fanbase is often referred to as the 'Navy'.
• Reality Subtext: A lot of people are convinced her music and videos after the infamous Chris Brown incident reflected her feelings on the matter, although she's never actually said it herself.
  • The video for "We Found Love" is widely believed to be a recreation of her relationship with Chris Brown.
  • The video for "Bitch Better Have My Money" is more or less a rage-filled pot shot at her former accountancy firm, who heavily mismanaged her money in 2009 and nearly left her bankrupt, and she successfully sued them.
• Referenced by...: Has it's own page.
• So My Kids Can Watch: While she didn't have children at the time, a large part of why she took the role of Tip in Home (2015) was that young black girls as well as younger fans of hers can have a character they can relate to.
• What Could Have Been: Rihanna and Chris Brown recorded a version of "Bad Girl" for Confessions of a Shopaholic that was removed in favor of the version by Pussycat Dolls.
  • "SOS" was originally written for Christina Milian, but she passed on it. The song was offered to Rihanna afterwards after a suggestion by a Def Jam employee.