Rihanna revealed in a recent interview with Vogue that she only shared a video of her infant son on social media in order to beat out a paparazzo who’d photographed him moments before.
As British Vogue’s Giles Hattersley wrote in his profile of the “Needed Me” singer, during the cover shoot for the story, security guards noticed a suspicious flash on the beach where Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, and their son (whose name has yet to be revealed) were taking photos. They determined it was a paparazzo trying to sneak pictures of the infant.
Rihanna later recalled to Hattersley that the incident on the beach was “the thing you never want to happen.”
“We get to decide as parents when and how we do that. End of story,” the singer said of revealing her son’s face to the public.
“Throw me to the wolves. Do what you want with me. But he doesn’t have a say in any of this,” Rihanna continued. “We’ve been protecting him thus far and you don’t have any consent to be posting photos or selling photos of my child, a minor. Get the hell out of here with that.”
Ultimately, as Hattersley’s profile revealed, Rihanna and Rocky decided to preempt any paparazzi photos of their son by showing his face on their terms.
“I just went straight into protective mode. Like there wasn’t even time for rage. [Rocky and me] drove up to the trailer area and we sat in the car chatting and working out how we move forward,” the Fenty Beauty founder recalled. “As parents it just feels so icky, like a violation.”
The parents ended up sharing a few candid photos with a “friendly blogger” and revealing their son’s face in a TikTok posted to Rihanna’s account, which she created then and there, that December.
Elsewhere in the British Vogue interview, Rihanna — who recently revealed she was pregnant with her and Rocky’s second child — spoke about her decision to perform at the Superbowl halftime show after previously boycotting the event due to solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
The singer also answered questions about her long-awaited follow-up album to 2016’s “Anti,” telling Vogue that it would be “ridiculous” not to release the album this year.
