Rihanna has given fans an update on life as a new mother after she welcomed a baby boy with partner A$AP Rocky last May.
On 15 February, the family of three were announced as the newest cover stars for British Vogue’s March 2023 issue. The cover shows Rihanna at the foreground, walking on the beach and reaching out her hand for her rapper boyfriend, who is seen holding their nine-month-old son in his arms.
The cover is just one glimpse into Rihanna’s newfound motherhood. The “Diamonds” singer revealed to British Vogue everything from her son’s sleeping patterns to the moment she and A$AP Rocky left the hospital as a family of three.
“Oh, he sleeps through the night now,” the Fenty Beauty founder began. As for whether she’s found any sleep since welcoming her baby, Rihanna admitted: “You know I don’t. Look at us right now. No, I’m up. I’m like, ‘OK, time to watch some Housewives.’ These are my hours.”
Rihanna also described her first nine months as a new mother as “legendary,” adding: “It’s everything. You really don’t remember life before, that’s the craziest thing ever.”
“You literally try to remember it – and there are photos of my life before – but the feeling, the desires, the things that you enjoy, everything, you just don’t identify with it because you don’t even allow yourself mentally to get that far, because…because it doesn’t matter,” she explained.
When it came time to deliver her baby boy back in May, Rihanna said she felt “blessed” that her birthing experience was “beautiful”.
“I cannot believe it,” she explained. “Essentially, from one person I became two. You walk into the hospital as a couple and leave as a family of three. It’s nuts. And oh, my gosh, those first days are insane. You don’t sleep. At all. Not even if you wanted to. We came home, cold turkey, had no one. It was just us as parents and our baby. Man, you’re a zombie for the most part.”
She continued, “You’re just going through the motions, and even then you’re so paranoid. Because you’re like: they trusted us to come home with this baby? This new life? With us? No doctors, no nurses, we’re just… going home?”
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky began dating in early 2020 before taking their relationship public later that year. The two started off as friends, and the Barbadian singer has even admitted she kept the “Praise the Lord” rapper in the “friend zone” for years prior to them dating.
Now as first-time parents, Rihanna admitted that their dynamic has slightly shifted.
“We’re best friends with a baby,” she told the outlet. “We have to be on the same page, but we’ve always kind of had that in our relationship. Everything changes when you have a baby but I wouldn’t say it’s done anything but made us closer.”
The father and son have also sparked up their own special relationship, Rihanna revealed.
“I’m just sitting on the sidelines when they’re together,” she said. “I’m literally the girl trying to get into the boys club, waiting for my turn. He is obsessed with his father. And I’m like: ‘Didn’t I give birth to you? What is going on?’ Their connection is undeniable. The second Rocky makes eye contact with him he is on fire. The whole thing they say about sons and moms, it’s a myth. Sons and fathers is crazy. I realised that the validation that you really need as a boy is from your father.”
The British Vogue cover comes just days after Rihanna revealed at the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show that she’s pregnant with baby number two.
During her Super Bowl halftime performance, she performed a mash-up of her biggest hits while wearing a red jumpsuit zipped halfway up. In addition to displaying what many suggested was a pregnancy bump, the singer was seen rubbing her stomach during the performance.
Following the halftime show, a representative for Rihanna confirmed the pregnancy speculation in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
