Did anyone happen to have "Rihanna goes viral singing her own songs at karaoke in public" on their 2024 bingo card? Because if you did, make sure to give yourself credit, since it happened right under the wire before the new year.
As much as this news might sound like a hoax or strange, collective internet fever dream, it's neither. On Sunday, December 29, the Fenty Beauty founder made a surprise appearance at the Girls Love Karaoke event in New York City, where she performed two songs from her 2016 album, Anti (and low-key trolled fans in the process).
In videos of the performance that fans shared online, Rihanna sings her tracks "Needed Me" and "Sex With Me" after warning the audience that she could only spare five minutes because her “battery” was “about to burn out," according to People.
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The reaction from fans who heard Rihanna's impromptu karaoke performance was mixed. Some focused on the excitement of the moment happening at all with comments like "Imagine going to [karaoke] night and you get a free Rihanna performance," others went in on the performance, criticizing her vocals as "horrible," and roasting the singer with jokes like "the mic was bleeding" and "My cat can sing better.”
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Others took a much more playful view of Rihanna's performance as the singer purposefully embracing the bad singing stereotype of karaoke and/or just having a great time without caring how her vocals sounded.
"Say what you about Rihanna’s singing at a drunken karaoke event, however she will always be THAT GIRL," one fan said while defending the performance on X. "The MIC is always ON and that TONE is unmatched. 😘."
Another chimed in on the sheer relatability of the moment, writing on X, "that karaoke video of Rihanna? can’t really hate on her because I sound just like that when I am drunk and out having fun with friends 😭."
And, of course, there were some who took the moment as an opportunity to call for new music from the singer, adding to what she described in a 2023 interview with British Vogue as "toxic pressure" she feels to top Anti with her next album.
"There’s this pressure that I put on myself. That if it’s not better than that then it is not even worth it," she said at the time, adding that it's not a healthy way to approach creating music, which should be "an outlet and a space to create, and you can create whatever."
FWIW, the "Born Again" singer added during that interview that she doesn't plan to let the toxic pressure stop her from releasing more music in the future.
“I realized that if I keep waiting until this feels right and perfect and better, maybe it’s going to keep taking forever and maybe it’ll never come out and no, I’m not down to that," she said. "So I want to play. And by play, I mean I have my ideas in my head, but I can’t say them out loud yet.”
