Rihanna Gives Very Rare Insight Into Her Sons RZA and Riot’s Personalities When Their Dad A$AP Rocky Face 24 Years in Prison Over Shooting Trial

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.”

Rihanna explains why ageing has been a ‘blessing’ to her

Rihanna has reflected on the ageing process as she enters a new period of her life, saying it’s “s***, but it’s also a blessing”.

The 37-year-old pop star first shot to fame as a 17-year-old with her hit single “Pon de Replay”. Since then, she has had numerous chart-topping singles and albums, becoming one of the most successful artists of all time.

In recent years, she has shirked fan demands for a new album and has instead focused on business ventures and her journey into motherhood. The star, whose real name is Robyn Fenty, gave birth to her first son RZA by partner A$AP Rocky in May 2022. In August 2023, the couple welcomed their second son, Riot.

Rocky was recently acquitted of facing up to 24 years in prison for two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.

“Getting old is s***, but it’s also a blessing,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “My legacy is right now. That’s all I have the most control over. My legacy is what I do with my time at this moment. How am I present with the people around me? How am I grateful? How am I making this a happy moment? How am I making a memory?”

The “Diamonds” singer reflected on her upbringing, explaining that her tenacity in her early years came from a dedication to her family, and a determination to become a success.

“I’ve always been afraid of how much is me versus what I’ve been influenced by,” she said.

“I left home as a teenager, and I left everything I knew: my family, my friends, my food, my culture. And I came to a big city by myself, and the only option for me was to win. I knew that I had to win.

“The suffering that I felt not being a part of anything that I knew, there was only one way to make that worth it, because I knew that my family was suffering without me too. And so I was like, ‘There’s no way. This has to pay off.’ And that was my fight, my goal, my everything. Every single day. I only got to see my family at Christmas. So I spent the year just going for it until I saw them.”

Although she is now one of the wealthiest and most influential musicians in the world, she explained that she struggles to balance her love for her work with time with her loved ones.

“Every decision I make revolves around them, but everything that I do that I love robs me from them,” she said about juggling work and motherhood.

“So I have a weird resentment with the things that I love. You almost feel like something is always suffering for you to show up somewhere. And even when you show up there, it’s not 100 per cent because there’s something else on the wheel. It’s actually given me a lot more self-guilt.

“I have to keep reminding myself that I asked for this, I love this. I try to figure out a balance so that I can feel fulfilled when I show up to something, so I can feel I don’t have any guilt.”

She added: “[What I know] is that you’re carving your journey. And every disappointment, letdown, hurt, good, weird, uncomfortable—it’s all for you. All of your experiences, they’re actually preparing you for the next step. I look at my childhood and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, God already knew that this is how my life would look.”