Infamous Interviews: Rihanna
In advance of Rihanna's performance for the Super Bowl, LVII, let's glance back at some of her many well-known interviews. I meant to publish this post earlier, but [spoiler]I didn't.
Interview Magazine
Rihanna by Kanye West
By Kanye West and probably some editors and ghost writers
December 2010
If you are not familiar, Interview magazine's shtick is that it gets two famous people to talk at each other and it prints their conversation as an interview. Whether the two celebrities in question have enough brain cells between them to conduct a formal interview is debatable, but the result is definitely entertaining.
When this interview took place, Rihanna was at the beginning of what many consider her Imperial era, having released Rated R and then Loud back-to-back. If you thought magazine journalists could be pretentious and self-involved, it is multiplied by 10 when it's a celebrity, especially Kanye, who talks about himself a ton in the interview. Also, the first thing he talks about is about her fashion sense, not her music or career.
Then, they go from asking about Rihanna's recent tour to Kanye asking this:
WEST: How does it feel to know that you could have any man in the world? Or woman. How does it feel to know that you can turn straight women gay?
RIHANNA: Is that a real question?
WEST: Yeah.
RIHANNA: Well … Thank you. I don’t know how to feel about that. [Laughs] I guess that’s flattering.
WEST: But just to have that level of power. How do you deal with it? No one woman should have that much power.
RIHANNA: I try not to depend on it. It’s just a part of what’s happening right now in my life, and I appreciate it. It helps a lot. [Laughs]
*genbu_no_miko24 pointed out that Kanye is making a reference to his own song "Power," which goes, "No one man should have all that power."
Don't worry -- then he asks about her album. However, Kanye's questions can also be thoughtful. When he was lucid, he could be very insightful. (And, lbr, he probably had an assistant who put together a list of questions for him.)
For instance, he discusses how rapidly she was releasing music at the time and told her that she had the right to take her time. This is an interesting quote considering her current seven-year hiatus from music.
WEST: But it seems like you’ve been dropping albums year after year. What’s your process of putting together your music. When do you decide that it’s actually ready to go?
RIHANNA: From the beginning, when we started making music, it was kind of always back to back-even with the second album that came, I would say, eight months after the first album was released, and then the third album came a year after that. So I’ve just never stopped making music. I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.
This might *shock* you, but Rihanna was ~one of the guys~ and ~didn't get along with girls~
RIHANNA: I didn’t get along with people very well. I got along with guys, but I hated the girls and the teachers.
WEST: Is that where you got your swag?
RIHANNA: Yeah. I mean, all my friends, even if they weren’t in my school, were always guys.
There is plenty of random-ass Kanye, like when he randomly asks her, in the middle of a totally different topic, if she knows any famous people:
WEST: Do you know any famous people now?
RIHANNA: Huh? [Laughs]
And, of course, like half the interview is them talking about whether Rihanna will get married and have kids.
The photoshoot, done by Swedish fashion photographer Mikael Jansson, is beautiful, though -- peak Rihanna, full of edgy fashion and bright colors.
The New York Times Magazine
A Very Revealing Conversation With Rihanna
By Miranda July
October 2015
Miranda July, the acclaimed indie filmmaker, seems an odd choice to profile Rihanna. July wrote a fawning, semi-ironic, very self-aware piece that is just as much about July as it is about her subject. The whole premise is that July is in awe of her.
I DRESSED VERY CAREFULLY for her, the way I would for a good friend, thinking hard about what she likes. What I think she likes. I ordered Uber Black - the highest level of Uber I’ve ridden. The driver said it would be about an hour and a half to Malibu, a long time to resist telling him where I was going.
"I’m going to meet Rihanna," I finally yelled over the radio.
She couches her interview in fandom, but she also kind of backhands Rihanna's accomplishments.
A lesbian art history professor told me that [Rihanna's] "the real deal." Others used the words "magic" and "epic." But when I tried to get anyone to pinpoint things she had said or done - particular interviews or incidents - everyone became lost in inarticulacy. Yet another friend, referencing an episode of "Style Wars" that Rihanna had appeared on, concluded, "You could just tell she’s a good person." None of this was all that helpful.
July also makes sure to make it known that Rihanna gave her a compliment.
"Can I ask you what this is?" she said, gesturing to my outfit.
"Yves Saint Laurent, vintage."
"Your taste - I mean, I can’t even talk to you."
"Thank you," I said. "I dressed for you."
Despite July's status as a renowned director, there is still plenty of cringeworthy writing typical in a celebrity profile:
Witnessing Rihanna’s profound enjoyment of fashion is one of the great vicarious pleasures of this era. We all detonated the Met Ball in that giant yellow cape. We were all the first black face of Dior. We were all punk enough to wear the silk-screened jeans of SonyA Sombreuil. Being Rihanna just feels good, at least from the outside.
And, of course, despite July being an outspoken feminist, she just has to ask Rihanna about being in a relationship with men. Specifically, whether she is in a relationship and why not.
"Guys need attention," she explained. "They need that nourishment, that little stroke of the ego that gets them by every now and then. I’ll give it to my family, I’ll give it to my work - but I will not give it to a man right now."
I said that it took me a long time to find a guy who wasn’t threatened by my power, and Rihanna quietly replied, "I’m still in that time."
Honestly, some of this interview is just plain fucking weird. Like when they google deep vaginas:
I glanced down at my carefully typed-up questions, looking for an easy opener. "Do you search the Internet?" I asked, "And if so, what do you look up?"
"Oh, random things. Like I will be sitting around Googling childbirth."
"Could be more random than childbirth."
"Childbirth is putting it the not-gross way. I was searching the size of certain things, and how much they expand, and then what happens after...."
"It’s gonna be fine," I said from experience. Also, I wanted to add, "You have a special body. Nothing you can Google applies to you."
Oh, also, they Google "deep vaginas:"
"'Phobia of a big vagina.’...‘Deep.’... This is awful. I can’t believe I’m typing this in."
"Wait," I said. "Deep’s not an issue. It’s wide."
"Deep is an issue, hello!"
"Huh. Cause I feel like the - I always feel short-vaginaed."
Rihanna laughed. "Trust me, if they can’t feel the end, it’s like, Cannonball!"
Cannonball meant sailing into space - into something never-ending, like the cosmos. Men like to know that there is an end to the woman they’re with, that she’s finite. It’s an impossible line to walk. You want to be global, but down to earth. In the moment but also one step ahead of it. [OP note: What the fuck???]
Yes, this is a whole paragraph of philosophizing that Miranda July wrote about Rihanna's joke about deep vaginas.
When this profile was released, the reaction around the internet was to praise July and relate to her over-the-top fan-girling. However, reading it back, this reaction from both July and the white highbrow audience she caters to can seem almost...forced? She plays the starstruck fan role in a way that is almost patronizing, considering she is a famous director. There are very few references to Rihanna's actual, you know, music in the profile. Just July verbally masturbating to Rihanna's beauty, fashion, and body -- all physical aspects, not artistic ones. It almost comes across as romanticizing -- even fetishizing.
On her Instagram Rihanna is often wearing bikini-type outfits - once while cuddling a baby monkey - and she looks great. Never lewd, just alive. I suggested that a body as perfect as hers can never really be naked or vulnerable. She tried to describe what makes a great photo: "There’s no rule about whether you have to be clothed or not. I want to see a naked woman who isn’t even aware of her nakedness."
Here are a few more cringey things that July wrote:
I asked her when she first learned about sex.
I wanted to ask her about being a young black woman with power in America but it seemed somehow wrong to speak of this; maybe she was postracial now.
It occurred to me that Miranda July actually interviewed Rihanna in a manner very similar to that of male journalists who write awestruck yet objectifying and sometimes downright bizarre profiles of famous women. You could switch the name Miranda with the name Michael and it would not be too far off from the usual crap that magazines publish about female celebrities. Because the final paragraph of this profile is this:
Before stepping inside my house, I lifted my blouse to my face; her perfume was still there. The problem with this kind of romance is that it all falls apart in the retelling. My husband and 3-year-old son tried but couldn’t really understand how overwhelming and profound my connection with Rihanna was. And I’ll admit that as the days go by, even I am beginning to doubt whether our time together meant quite as much to her as it did to me. It doesn’t matter. My heart still jumps every time I see her face.
Okey dokey, girl.
[More infamous interviews] Julia Roberts, Megan Fox Taylor Swift, Rooney Mara, John Mayer, Britney Spears, Tom Hiddleston, 5 Seconds of Summer, Jessica Alba, Angelina Jolie, M.I.A., Chris Evans, Jennifer Lopez, Kate Winslet, Beyoncé, Channing Tatum, Cara Delevingne, Johnny Depp, Miles Teller, Courtney Love
[More famous photoshoots:] The Desperate Housewives cast, Teen stars, Beverly Johnson/Naomi Campbell, Drew Barrymore, The Beckhams, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
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