She's been vilified in her native Barbados and by US media, and was seriously assaulted by her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, but the Bajan Beyoncé, who performs in Ireland in a week, is still on top, writes BRIAN BOYD
IT WAS THE teenage female pop star version of Roy of the Rovers: the 15-year-old Rihanna was spotted by a famous music producer who was holidaying in the singer's native Barbados. She was flown to New York and signed to Jay-Z's record label; her first single and album were huge global hits. As her career threatened to eclipse even that of Beyoncé's, she broke millions of teenage girl hearts when she began a relationship with the equally famous r'n'b star Chris Brown. They were chart music's Golden Couple, both blessed with multi-million dollar fortunes, pin-up good looks and boundless talent.
At the 2009 Grammy Awards show, both were multi-nominated, expected to steal the show and there were even excited whispers about the two doing a duet together. At a pre-Grammy party the night before, they were the envy of many. Both not yet 21, they had it all and a good bit to spare.
But the showbiz mirror cracked violently as they drove home early to ready themselves for the following night. A text pinged into Chris Brown’s mobile phone inbox. Because he was driving, Rihanna said she would read it out for him. According to the affidavit of a Los Angeles policeman, the text was from an ex-girlfriend of Brown’s. An argument ensued. The affidavit details how “Brown shoved Rihanna’s head against the passenger window . . . punched her in the left eye . . . continued to punch her while driving causing Rihanna’s mouth to fill with blood . . . shouted at her, ‘I’m going to beat the shit out of you when we get home. I’m really going to kill you” . . . Brown then stopped the car and began choking Rihanna until the point where she began to lose consciousness”.
Police photographs of Rihanna immediately after the attack – showing her looking like she had been savaged by an Alsatian dog – were leaked to the media. So distressing were they that numerous publications refused to carry them. Speaking months later about the media circus in the wake of the brutal assault, the pop singer said, “I felt like I went to sleep one night as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears, such was the chaos the next day. There were helicopters circling my house . . .”
Three weeks later, Chris Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years’ probation, six months of community service and one year of domestic violence counselling. There is also a five-year restraining order which requires him to remain 50 yards away from Rihanna. Rather bizarrely, and in acknowledgement of the fact that both are likely to attend music award ceremonies at the same time, the order is reduced to 10 yards at “public events”.
BROWN TOOK TO today’s most public of forums, YouTube, to apologise profusely for the assault and “accept accountability for my actions”. The apology, though, was somewhat undermined by his wearing of a neck pendant which read “Oops”. His career is in tatters. One month before the assault, he sold out four shows in Dublin’s 02 (and could have sold out many more). At the moment he is struggling to fill out his one Vicar Street show in Dublin next month.
To their millions of teenage fans, the incident provoked a heated and sometimes irrational debate about domestic violence. While Brown was universally loved before the assault, Rihanna was never a performer that people could warm to. Alarmingly, one poll at the time found that 48 per cent of the pair’s fans thought “Rihanna was responsible”. When the singer got back together with Brown briefly post-assault, she was accused of being a “liar” and “out to destroy Chris Brown’s career because she is jealous”.
But then Rihanna, to put it mildly, has never enjoyed good PR. Even people within the industry who wouldn’t normally indulge in character attacks have referred to her as a “cold bitch”. It’s a perception that the singer herself is acutely aware of. “People assume that I’m snooty and that I’m a bitch,” she has said. “I don’t really open up to a lot of people. I just don’t feel I have to be that enthusiastic if I don’t know who you are yet.”
Born in 1988 in Barbados, her childhood was marred by her father’s (who is of mixed Bajan/Irish descent) addiction to crack cocaine. Her parents divorced when she was 14. She says her unhappy childhood left her with “issues” about “trust, personal space and control”. She formed a girl group with two school friends and when someone told her that the noted songwriter and record producer, Evan Rogers, was holidaying near where she lived, she talked her way into an impromptu audition. Rogers had no time for the two friends but was so impressed by the 15-year-old Rihanna that he arranged for her to come and live with him and his wife in the US to prepare her for stardom.
AN EARLY DEMO Rogers produced found itself in the hands of one of the most important figures in today's musical world, the rapper Jay-Z, who immediately signed Rihanna to his own record label. Jay-Z helped her move from being a shy pop-reggae singer into a raunchy r'n'b sex siren. The hits flowed for the singer and she achieved critical mass with a song called Umbrella, which was written for Britney Spears but was turned down by both Spears and the second-choice singer, Mary J Blige. The writers of the song didn't want her near Umbrella, but when Jay-Z remixed it and wrote his own rap interlude for the intro, they grudgingly relented. Rihanna's Umbrellabecame one of the biggest hits of the past 10 years. It is one of the most-played songs in the history of Irish radio.
Not displaying, say, Beyoncé’s easy way with worldwide fame and popularity, Rihanna frequently displayed gauche and awkward behaviour as she toured around the world (she herself attributes this to her humble and disadvantaged West Indian background). Despite being the best known Bajan in the world, the reaction to her in her native land is eye-wateringly hostile. Barbados, away from the tourist resorts, remains a deeply conservative country, and Rihanna has been attacked for “looking like a tart”, “forgetting her roots” and “shaming the country” with her raunchy videos. She was particularly pilloried for talking about being the victim of prejudice (by black people) growing up due to her lighter skin tone. Bajans don’t like this form of ugly prejudice – which does exist in the country – being aired internationally.
Her treatment by the Bajan media (which by any objective standard is cruel and malicious) has reduced her to tears. “They always have to find fault, they’re just waiting for you to fall,” she has said. “It’s easier for them to say: ‘Little whore, you slept with Jay-Z to get signed.’ Even when I go back there now, I’ll see girls in the street, walking and snubbing and saying stuff about me.”
In the US the criticism was less severe but still prominent. There is any number of unfounded/untrue rumours that her success is down to the “Jay-Z casting couch” and that Jay-Z’s wife, Beyoncé, once pushed her down a flight of a stairs in a Los Angeles nightclub, shouting after her, “keep your hands off my husband”.
SHE ARRIVES IN Ireland next week for three Irish performances (two shows in Dublin, one in Belfast). She is touring her current Rated Ralbum which is littered with oblique references to the Brown assault. It's not something she addresses from the stage, though, but then she rarely gets past mumbling "Hello" on stage. She is no longer the pop princess who enthralled us all with Umbrella– these days she favours a PVC dominatrix look that makes Grace Jones look like Julie Andrews. Perhaps this harsh new Amazonian image is over-compensation for being a shy young girl from a dysfunctional background who has lived the pop dream – and experienced the nightmare of assault.
CV Rihanna
Name: Robyn Rihanna Fenty. The first name and surname are now redundant – she's officially "mononymous"
Over Here:She performs at Dublin's 02 on May 22nd and 26th and Belfast's Odyssey Arena on May 24th
Best Known For: Her Umbrella . . . Ella . . . Ella
Not Known For: Chatty banter. If she manages to cough up a "Hello Dublin", count yourself lucky
