was shown naked, but she used a large board with the single’s title on it to hide her modesty. She wore a pair of masculine black boots, a top hat and in her mouth was a cigarette. Some people criticised her for ‘glamorising smoking’ on the cover but her fans felt she wasn’t at all. She has smoked in several of her videos (‘Disturbia’, ‘Wait Your Turn’ and ‘Rude Boy’) but she isn’t telling her fans to do so – it’s just part of the character she is portraying in the videos.
Rihanna decided to go in a different direction with the cover art for ‘Rockstar 101’. This was a much less aggressive cover, with her face being the main focus. Her hair is blonde apart from a black band at the front, which is covered in black netting. The eye make-up is still dark, with a patch drawn over her left eye but her lips are painted nude. She has one weapon-like earring on her left ear. The cover for the remix album was identical apart from the background changing to purple, which lifts the colour in her face.
For her international single ‘Te Amo’, Rihanna returned to her dark side and posed with a finger to her lips and her face touching a mannequin. It was a cover that screamed seduction and had the ‘R’ logo in the top left-hand corner.
The first single that Rihanna released from Rated R was ‘Russian Roulette’. Released on 3 November 2009, it reached No. 9 in the US and Canada charts. It did better in Switzerland, Norway and Slovakia, where it topped the charts, and it made it to No. 2 in the UK.
Rihanna explained what the song was about to the Associated Press. She said: ‘For me it was about being in a relationship and being afraid of getting hurt in the end, which is kind of the same feeling you go through playing the game of Russian roulette. You know that somebody could get hurt in the end and you’re just terrified that it’s going to be you. So when I said I’m terrified but I’m not leaving, then it means: I’m scared I’m gonna get hurt, but I’m in love so I’m not going to leave.’
Anthony Mandler was the director of the video, and he was the one who came up with the concept of having Rihanna imprisoned, interrogated, shot at underwater and run over, as well as having her play Russian roulette in the video with a gun. All in all, the video took two days to shoot. Before it came out, he confessed to journalist Jocelyn Vena: ‘I think that with this song and the meaning of this song and how loaded it all is, no pun intended, how much imagery and perhaps symbolism that is loaded in this song, the only way to do it was to do something that was visually challenging.’
The scenes between Rihanna and her lover in the video were intentionally of secondary importance: ‘I think our objective was to run down our lane with it and to step out of the drama and the gossip, to get deeper and be more symbolic.’
The video was up for the Best Female Video award at the 2010 MTV Japan Video Music Awards, but it was beaten by the Japanese R&B singer Namie Amuro’s track ‘New Look’.
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
O n 9 November 2009, Rihanna was honoured at Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall, New York, alongside 11 other amazing women. She wore a gorgeous mermaid-style gown by the designer Stéphane Rolland that wasn’t very practical, as she struggled to walk in it, but it looked amazing.
As her tribute video played, Rihanna couldn’t help shedding a tear or two as she stood on stage. She told the audience: ‘I couldn’t possibly make it up here in this dress. As usual, I decided to wear the tightest dress I could find.’
She couldn’t climb the stairs onto the stage because of the dress, and instead entered from backstage, not that anyone minded. Rihanna’s award was presented by Iman, David Bowie’s wife, who is a model, actress and successfulbusinesswoman; Iman explained why Rihanna was picking up the Woman of the Year award by saying: ‘This year we saw a
Rihanna decided to go in a different direction with the cover art for ‘Rockstar 101’. This was a much less aggressive cover, with her face being the main focus. Her hair is blonde apart from a black band at the front, which is covered in black netting. The eye make-up is still dark, with a patch drawn over her left eye but her lips are painted nude. She has one weapon-like earring on her left ear. The cover for the remix album was identical apart from the background changing to purple, which lifts the colour in her face.
For her international single ‘Te Amo’, Rihanna returned to her dark side and posed with a finger to her lips and her face touching a mannequin. It was a cover that screamed seduction and had the ‘R’ logo in the top left-hand corner.
The first single that Rihanna released from Rated R was ‘Russian Roulette’. Released on 3 November 2009, it reached No. 9 in the US and Canada charts. It did better in Switzerland, Norway and Slovakia, where it topped the charts, and it made it to No. 2 in the UK.
Rihanna explained what the song was about to the Associated Press. She said: ‘For me it was about being in a relationship and being afraid of getting hurt in the end, which is kind of the same feeling you go through playing the game of Russian roulette. You know that somebody could get hurt in the end and you’re just terrified that it’s going to be you. So when I said I’m terrified but I’m not leaving, then it means: I’m scared I’m gonna get hurt, but I’m in love so I’m not going to leave.’
Anthony Mandler was the director of the video, and he was the one who came up with the concept of having Rihanna imprisoned, interrogated, shot at underwater and run over, as well as having her play Russian roulette in the video with a gun. All in all, the video took two days to shoot. Before it came out, he confessed to journalist Jocelyn Vena: ‘I think that with this song and the meaning of this song and how loaded it all is, no pun intended, how much imagery and perhaps symbolism that is loaded in this song, the only way to do it was to do something that was visually challenging.’
The scenes between Rihanna and her lover in the video were intentionally of secondary importance: ‘I think our objective was to run down our lane with it and to step out of the drama and the gossip, to get deeper and be more symbolic.’
The video was up for the Best Female Video award at the 2010 MTV Japan Video Music Awards, but it was beaten by the Japanese R&B singer Namie Amuro’s track ‘New Look’.
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
O n 9 November 2009, Rihanna was honoured at Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall, New York, alongside 11 other amazing women. She wore a gorgeous mermaid-style gown by the designer Stéphane Rolland that wasn’t very practical, as she struggled to walk in it, but it looked amazing.
As her tribute video played, Rihanna couldn’t help shedding a tear or two as she stood on stage. She told the audience: ‘I couldn’t possibly make it up here in this dress. As usual, I decided to wear the tightest dress I could find.’
She couldn’t climb the stairs onto the stage because of the dress, and instead entered from backstage, not that anyone minded. Rihanna’s award was presented by Iman, David Bowie’s wife, who is a model, actress and successfulbusinesswoman; Iman explained why Rihanna was picking up the Woman of the Year award by saying: ‘This year we saw a
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