Rihanna spoke to Harper’s Bazaar about far more than just her highly anticipated ninth album in her cover interview. The singer gave intimate new details about her family, including what her two sons, RZA and Riot, are like as their personalities emerge. RZA is 2-and-a-half years old, while his little brother, Riot, is just 1-and-a-half.
“RZA is just an empath,” Rihanna began. “He’s so magical. He loves music. He loves melody. He loves books. He loves water. Bath time, swimming, pool, beach, anything. And Riot, he’s just hilarious. When he wakes up, he starts to squeal, scream. Not in a crying way. He just wants to sing. And I’m like, ‘Okay, here we go!’ He’s my alarm in the morning! He’s not taking no for an answer from anyone. I don’t know where he came from, dude,” she quipped.
RZA needed time to adjust to no longer being an only child, “like all [new] siblings do, and at first Riot was understanding that his role was being the little brother,” Rihanna shared. “Now he knows he’s in charge.”
Rihanna also opened up about her relationship with their father and her longtime friend-turned-partner, A$AP Rocky. The best thing about him “is seeing him be a dad,” she said. “His pureness. His charm. I’m annoyed because my sons sometimes just live for him more than they live for me. And I’m like, ‘Did you know who cooked you? Do you know who pushed you out?’ And they love him, but when I see it, oh, it’s the best.”
Rocky has made a point to keep the fun and romance alive in their relationship. They go out regularly: “That’s a big thing for us and actually a really big thing for him,” she shared. “He always reminds me, no matter how hard everything is that we’re dealing with in our life, in our careers and as parents, he’s like, ‘Remember when we were friends? Remember when we just used to have fun as friends?’”
Rihanna said they prefer just being with the general public: “We like to eat with people. We like to shop with people. We like to walk the streets with people. I don’t like a private room. I don’t have them shut down stores. I don’t like the Rapunzel life. It’s very isolating. It’s very lonely. And what am I protecting myself from? I’m actually allowing people to dictate the robbery of the life that I could actually be living.”