Photographed by Annie Leibovitz
See The Slideshow «
Watching Rihanna work her way through the crowds at the Staples Center one Wednesday night in January, during a Los Angeles Clippers vs. Miami Heat basketball game, is a bit like watching a purebred, prizewinning Abyssinian wander into a coyote den. Perfectly nice gentlemen turn into eye-popping, lip-smacking cartoons of their former selves, practically tripping over one another as she struts past in skintight blue jeans and nude Louboutins, her Little Red Riding Hood hair grazing the top of the dark sunglasses that cover those glossy hazel eyes.
By the time we descend into the arena and get to our courtside seats, it’s a safe bet that thousands of people are aware that the pop star is seated among them. Her hair is the opposite of a disguise; indeed, it is a neon beacon in a sea of color and noise. Before long the cameramen find her, and within seconds her ce is on the Jumbotron, sending a wave of murmurs—rihannarihannarihanna—rippling through the rows. When she realizes she is glowing huge on the screen above us, she takes off her sunglasses, flashes that sweet smile, and waves to the cheering ns.
Click here for Rihannas most shionable red-carpet moments.
All eyes may be on Rihanna, but during breaks in the game—in which she is deeply engrossed, cheering loudest for LeBron James and Dwyane Wade—she herself turns her laser beams on the crowd. A woman in a fur walks by, and I get a gentle elbow in the ribs. Check herouwt, she says, one eyebrow cocked in bemusement, her Barbadian accent suddenly very pronounced. Do you really think she needs to be wearing a full-length fur coat to a basketball game when it’s 70 degrees outside?
Rihanna creates an instant conspiratorial intimacy as she shares her big tub of popcorn and dissects the crowd. During a break, she draws my attention to a security guard on the court. This poor guy looks so worried. And then: Let’s try to make him laugh. She stares at him long and hard, and when he finally catches her eye he looks startled at first.Is she looking at me?But then slowly, a bashful smile creeps across his ce, which quickly gives way to laughter. Score!
Rihanna points out three women sitting together who have identical blonde hairstyles and quickly reads them: That one’s the mother, she says. The one next to her is her daughter, and then next to her is the daughter’s best friend. She sneaks another look. The daughter got the haircut first, and the other two copied her. Pause. They’re like three matching Barbies. And then, out of nowhere, she switches into a dead-on omigod Valley Girl accent.
Watch an exclusive behind-the-scenes video of Rihannas cover shoot with Annie Leibovitz.
I love reading people, she tells me later. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do. Her perceptiveness in some ways acts as a shield, because as provocative as Rihanna can be, there is something tough and guarded about her. As her label chairman and CEO, L.A. Reid, says, She became a star before she became an adult. Her nature is to protect herself. Here at the game, for instance, what the cameras and ns can’t see is the very fine gold chain around her neck with a teeny-tiny charm dangling from it that says F YOU.
It is exactly this aspect of her personality—the playful badass—that landed Rihanna her first acting gig, a role in Battleship, the $200 million summer action movie based on the Hasbro game and directed by the actor turned director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights). Also starring Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgård, and Brooklyn Decker, the film follows an American fleet that encounters an armada helmed by aliens and engages in a no-doubt totally awesome, save-the-world battle at sea. (Not scheduled to be released until May 2012, it is already waves:Avatardirector James Cameron has said that its board game–based premise degrades the cinema. When I ask Berg about that criticism, he replies, I’m a huge n of James Cameron, and as always, I thank him for his support.)
Berg was looking for an actress who could play the tough, urban, scrappy, funny naval officer Cora Raikes, and for some reason, he says, Rihanna popped into my head. He was initially intrigued by her video persona. But when you meet her, he says, there’s absolutely no resemblance to the y superdiva that you see in the videos. It’s a complete act, in my opinion. I am not saying she’s not a very y girl, but there’s so much more to her than that. She is clearly playing around with a character. And then he saw the hilariousSaturday Night LiveShy Ronnie skit in which she appeared with Andy Samberg last year, gamely sending up her own image. I thought, Wow, this girl is just an inherent performer, Berg says. He believes his gamble will pay off. She has a very strong presence—people are going to be surprised, he says. Let’s put it this way: She kicks ass.
Click here for the slideshow of musicians in Vogue throughout the years.
To play a gun-toting ammunitions specialist, Rihanna had to look like she knew a thing or two about how to fire an M4, not to mention be comfortable filming on a barge fourteen hours a day off the coast of Hawaii. She had to get into an eighteen-foot inflatable raft and sit behind a machine gun for six hours at a time in seven-foot swells, says Berg. We had rescue swimmers on Jet Skis and armed shark spotters because there were quite a few sharks out there.
Rihanna enjoyed every scary minute of it. There were all these people, cameras, and huge cranes out in the middle of the ocean, she says. And I got to do some stunts, which was incredible. I loved it—especially diving into the ocean.
Needless to say, Rihanna had to get in the best physical shape of her young life. She is no longer the sixteen-year-old ingenue who can eat whatever she wants (which, if left to her own devices, would be junk food and pasta). But luckily her trainer, Ary Nuñez, a Nike-sponsored athlete with several black belts, is there to keep those multimillion-dollar guns and gams camera-ready. Nuñez parked the pop star—whose figure she describes as Nicole Kidman meets J.Lo—on a RealRyder (a spinning bike with handlebars that move laterally) to strengthen her core. Nuñez also strapped weights to Rihanna’s hands so she could multitask. The trainer’s main strategy was to change it up because, as Rihanna admits, I hate going to the gym and doing it the old-shioned way. I hate anything that’s too straightforward, too routine, too miliar. I get bored really, really quickly.
Though Rihanna has the kind of Amazon body some women would kill for, she says she has only recently become content with her shape. Over the holidays, and even during filming, I realized that I actually like my body, even if it’s not perfect according to the book. I just feel y. For the first time, I don’t want to get rid of the curves. I just want to tone it up. My body is comfortable, and it’s not unhealthy, so I’m going to rock with it.
Download theexclusiveRihanna cover app here.
Along with the killer body (and of course that bewitching voice), it is Rihanna’s daring—and unerring—sense of style that has catapulted her out of the ranks of interchangeable one-name R&B singers. I see it for myself a couple of nights after the game, when Rihanna meets me in Beverly Hills for dinner at Scarpetta, a scene-y Italian restaurant she loves. She is wearing a tight, short salmon-colored dress from Topshop that has strategically placed cutouts with those same nude Louboutins. In other words, she looks like the Only Girl (in the World).
For her first two albums, Rihanna was styled like the beautiful island girl she is, in ded jeans and embroidered linen blouses. She was pretty but in a generic way. It wasn’t until she cut her hair short and dyed it black in 2007 that the entire shion world sat up and took notice. It reminded people of Linda Evangelista (whom Rihanna admires) chopping off her hair in the late eighties and becoming an overnight sensation. When I cut my hair, the whole sound changed, my style changed, she says, referring to the ct that she started dressing more punk and futuristic, a little Mad Max. And then she began switching her hair color from black to blonde to red, as casually as most women buy a new pair of shoes. As one shion person put it to me recently, There are very few women who can dye their hair Bozo the Clown red and still look so cool, so beautiful. (Not surprisingly, it now has a name: Rihanna Red.)
It’s been more of a challenge to figure out looks that are going to work with the hair and not compete with it, says her stylist Mariel Haenn, with whom she’s been collaborating since 2006. Her solution has been to move Rihanna toward something completely soft and feminine, and away from the tough, hard look that kind of gorihannat imprinted as her signature style, says Haenn.
Rihanna has become nothing less than a shion It girl. Bloggers and editors go crazy over her looks, whether it’s the fuchsia cropped sweater she paired with tangerine pedal-pushers in London or the Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo with wildly exaggerated shoulders she chose to wear to the Met Costume Institute gala. She’s very inspiring, says Haenn. She has a very strong idea of what she wants. And there is always some sort of, for lack of a better word, cool ctor. But because of her confidence, it never looks like a costume—it seems effortless.
Rihanna figured out that style mattered to her early on. When I was fourteen and first started going out, I always wanted to be the opposite of everyone else, she says. So I would go to the club in a polo T-shirt and pants and sneakers and a hat on backward, just so I would not be dressed like other girls. And I got desperate for things that weren’t available in Barbados. I would cut things out of magazines. I was obsessed with creating a visual with clothing, and the way things are combined. How does she think about shion now? It’s become more about taking a risk. When I am putting looks together, I dare myself to make something work. I always look for the most interesting silhouette or something that’s a little off, but I have to figure it out. I have to make itme. I think that’s the thrill in shion.
For the complete Rihanna cover story, buy the April issue ofVogue.
Youll be able to buy it at Gare du Nord or the airport.
They have all the international titles there.
I really liked her before reading the interview but after, i totally love her! she is adorable.
She makes it okay to be tough, funny and cheeky but vulnerable too. she is real.
Posting GuidelinesWe at Vogue.com would like to have a conversation with our readers.
We ask that you adhere to the following guidelines.
No . If you want us to know about outside sources, please link to them, Dont paste them in.
With a grand introduction in Funny Face, the incomparably lovely Audrey Hepburn stepped out as a shion plate nonpareilboth on-screen, as a bookworm turned model, and in life, where the role secured her starry position in the movieland firmament. From black cigarette pants worn with schoolboy pullovers to headscarves worn with oversize sunglasses, the ds she sparked are too many to enumerate.
.jpg)
