The fabulous life of Rihanna, from her Barbados roots to the Super Bowl, and Fenty Beauty’s game-changing role in makeup
- Rihanna is one of the most influential artists of her generation.
- Among other achievements, she has 14 No. 1 songs and nine Grammy Awards.
- She has also made her mark as a humanitarian, entrepreneur, and makeup mogul.
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At just 35 years old, Rihanna has already achieved icon status.
Over the course of her relatively short career, Rihanna has positioned herself as one of the most influential artists of her generation. She is the most successful artist in the history of Billboard’s Pop Songs Chart — not to mention her already-lasting mark as a humanitarian, entrepreneur, and makeup mogul.
Here’s a complete timeline of Rihanna’s biggest achievements and most iconic moments.
As a child in Barbados, Rihanna reportedly used music to escape from “anxieties of a violent home life.”
Rihanna — born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 — was raised in Barbados. She has said that growing up, her father was addicted to drugs and physically abusive towards her mother.
She has also joked that she “annoyed every one of [her] neighbors,” and her mom referred to her voice as an “annoying little husky man voice.”
Record producer Evan Rogers met Rihanna in 2003, while he was vacationing in Barbados with his wife. The 15-year-old singer told Rogers that being in the music business was “all I’ve ever wanted to do.” She had no formal training in music or dance, but Rogers remembers her remarkable “presence.”
“It was more likely a much more urgent need to escape from the anxieties of a violent home life into the illusion of security and boundless love that a life onstage seemed to offer,” he told John Seabrook, as recounted in his book “The Song Machine.”
“That desire, more than any inborn talent, is what fans will connect to, and that is what record men look for in a new artist. It’s the one thing they can’t manufacture.”
Rihanna signed to Def Jam in 2005. She was taken under the wing of the label’s then-president, Jay-Z.
In December 2004, Rihanna recorded the Caribbean jam “Pon de Replay” and sent the song off to several record labels.
In early 2005, a then-16-year-old Rihanna flew to New York City to audition for Def Jam’s newly appointed president and CEO, Jay-Z. According to a 2007 interview with The Guardian, she sang a Whitney Houston cover (“For the Love of You”) and two originals, one being “Pon de Replay.”
“I was like, ‘Oh God, he’s right there, I can’t look, I can’t look, I can’t look!'” she told The Guardian. “I remember being extremely quiet. I was very shy. I was cold the entire time. I had butterflies. I’m sitting across from Jay-Z. Like, Jay-Z. I was star-struck.”
“The audition definitely went well,” she continued. “Jay-Z said, ‘There’s only two ways out. Out the door after you sign this deal. Or through this window.’ And we were on the 29th floor. Very flattering.”
One year later, in May 2006, she scored her first No. 1 single.
“S.O.S.” was the debut single from Rihanna’s sophomore album, “A Girl Like Me.” It reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 three months after its release on Valentine’s Day and maintained its reign for three consecutive weeks.
The game-changing track “Umbrella” was released on March 29, 2007.
As Billboard’s Joe Lynch writes, when “Umbrella (feat. Jay-Z)” dropped, “Rihanna already had two albums and four top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits under her belt. But for a burgeoning pop icon, she was short just one thing: An instantly iconic pop smash that would prove she was in it for the long game.”
“‘Umbrella’ was that ubiquitous smash,” Lynch writes, “an inescapable hit that hit No. 1, soundtracked the summer of 2017 and introduced Bad Gal RiRi to your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa…basically, anyone with a set of ears.”
She took home her first Grammy Award in 2008.
Rihanna earned four nominations for the 50th annual Grammy Awards, which was the first time she was recognized by the Recording Academy.
On February 10, 2008, Rihanna and Jay-Z took home the trophy for best rap/sung collaboration. Their smash hit “Umbrella” was also nominated for record of the year, but lost to “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse.
Rihanna’s fifth studio album “Loud” earned her first Grammy nomination for album of the year.
“Loud” was released on November 12, 2010, and spawned three No. 1 songs: “What’s My Name?,” “Only Girl,” and “S&M.”
“Loud” earned Rihanna her first and, to date, only Grammy nomination for album of the year, the show’s most coveted award. It lost to Adele’s “21.”
She made her big screen debut with “Battleship” in May 2012.
The summer blockbuster “Battleship” was loosely based on the board game of the same name. It was critically panned, but praise-worthy for Rihanna’s big screen debut — for which she was chosen specifically by the film’s director, Peter Berg.
“Her videos are super hot and I’d watched them a lot. It clicked for me though after she got assaulted and she went on Diane Sawyer’s show and talked very frankly about that night and what happened,” Berg told GQ, referring to Rihanna’s 2009 assault by then-boyfriend Chris Brown.
“She was so intelligent and articulate,” he continued. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow. There’s much more to this woman than I’d thought.’ I then saw her do this stupid little skit on ‘Saturday Night Live’ where she was in a classroom giving a hard time to these boys. She was funny as all hell! I knew in that moment that the girl could act. No question.”
In November 2012, “Unapologetic” became Rihanna’s first No. 1 album.
Rihanna’s seventh studio album shot to the top of the Billboard 200, becoming Rihanna’s first No. 1 album, and won the Grammy for best urban contemporary album on January 26, 2014.
The album’s “stark, shadowy R&B,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Jon Dolan, “is confrontationally honest and sung within an inch of its life, whether she’s turning a strip-club anthem into a declaration of independence (‘Pour It Out’) or pleading at the piano (‘Stay’).”
Rihanna was given the American Music Awards’ first-ever Icon Award in 2013.
The 2013 American Music Awards hailed Rihanna as “the voice of our time” (Bill Maher’s words) and the best-selling digital artist of all time (Nielsen’s official title).
After performing the “Unapologetic” hit single “Diamonds,” Rihanna was presented with the first-ever Icon Award by her mother, Monica Braithwaite.
“I know the journey and your career has not always been an easy one,” Braithwaite said, according to Rolling Stone. “But tonight, I applaud and admire you for being so strong and so positive and so humble and so focused. I’m so blessed to be part of this historic moment.”
She received the CFDA Fashion Icon award in 2014.
Rihanna walked the 2014 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) red carpet in a sparkling, sheer gown and little else. But when asked about the daring fashion choice, she laughed it off in a classic Rihanna style: “Do my tits bother you? They’re covered in Swarovksi crystals, girl!”
Rihanna was named the creative director of Puma in 2014.
As reported by Time, Rihanna was tapped to oversee a women’s line of clothing for Puma, focusing on fitness and training clothes.
“It really came from her,” Adam Petrick, Puma’s global brand and marketing director, told The New York Times. “Though we originally started talking about it in terms of advertising, she wanted to express herself in this way. They said to us, ‘We can change the face of the brand from a product perspective.'” She did not just want to be a “face.”
She was also named a “brand ambassador” for the company, alongside star athletes like Usain Bolt.
The role ultimately led to Rihanna’s Fenty x Puma venture, which has yielded fashion moments like the award-winning suede Creepers, iconic fur sliders, and haute-couture athleisure.
Rihanna dropped her most celebrated album yet, “Anti,” on January 28, 2016.
Rihanna’s eighth studio album “Anti” was surprise-released after three years of anticipation. It was unlike anything the pop star had ever released. It went to No. 1 two weeks after its debut (stalled by a Tidal-exclusive release). It eventually became the first album by a Black female artist to spend 300 weeks on the Billboard 200.
Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos called it “a sprawling masterpiece of psychedelic soul” and “a rich full-length statement.”
“After more than a decade as a superstar of the singles chart, Rihanna has become an album artist,” Spanos wrote. “After years as a singer largely defined by her production, it finally feels like Rihanna is in charge of her own sound, remaking pop on her own terms.”
“Anti” was nominated for best urban contemporary album and best recording package at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
The album’s biggest hit, “Work,” was nominated for record of the year. Two of the album’s sleeper hits, “Needed Me” and “Kiss It Better,” were nominated for best R&B performance and best R&B song, respectively.
Rihanna’s Grammy nominations that year also included album of the year for her work on Drake’s “Views” and best rap/sung performance for her vocals on Kanye West’s “Famous.” She didn’t leave the ceremony with any awards (and fans will never forget).
Rihanna accepted the Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 VMAs.
Before Rihanna accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards — presented by Drake, who also casually confessed his love to her — she performed a medley of her greatest hits, including “Only Girl in the World,” “Rude Boy,” and “Bitch Better Have My Money.”
Instead of putting on one career-spanning performance of hits, as per tradition for the award, the pop star gave four such performances over the course of the show.
Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty in September 2017.
Rihanna made her foray into the world of beauty products on September 8, 2017, when Fenty Beauty was officially made available online and at Sephora.
The makeup line’s tour de force was its whopping 40 shades of foundation, which many hailed as the new standard of inclusivity for skin tones. The darkest shades appeared to sell out in record time.
Time magazine even listed Fenty Beauty among its best inventions of the year for 2017, in large part thanks to Rihanna’s mission of representation.
“It was important that every woman felt included in this brand,” Rihanna told Time. “We are all so different, with our own unique skin tones, so we started with the 40 foundation shades out the gate.”
“I never could have anticipated the emotional connection that women are having with the products and the brand as a whole. Some are finding their shade of foundation for the first time, getting emotional at the counter,” Rihanna said. “That’s something I will never get over.”
She launched Savage x Fenty in May 2018.
Savage x Fenty launched on May 11, 2018. The size-inclusive lingerie line was immediately praised for including people of “all shapes, sizes, and colors,” a reputation that it still boasts to this day.
Rihanna channeled the pope at the 2018 Met Gala, for which she was a co-chair.
In one of her more iconic fashion moments, Rihanna attended the 2018 Met Gala in a silver, bedazzled gown and accompanying robe.
She completed her elaborate look with a Stephen Jones Millinery hat crafted in the style of the pope’s tiara. This headdress is normally reserved for religious ceremonies — a nod to the night’s theme, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination.”
The complete outfit took 250 hours to sew and 500 hours to hand-embroider.
Rihanna starred in the ensemble film “Ocean’s 8,” released on June 5, 2018.
Rihanna was cast as a hacker named Nine Ball in the heist comedy, which was conceived as an all-female spinoff of the popular “Ocean’s 11” series.
While the film received mixed reviews, Rihanna was praised for adding “extra mischief and attitude to the octet,” in the words of Film Journal International’s Kevin Lally.
She welcomed her first child with A$AP Rocky in May 2022.
Rihanna began dating A$AP Rocky, her longtime friend and collaborator, in late 2020. Two years later, she gave birth to the couple’s first child, a son named RZA Athelston Mayers.
Rihanna described motherhood as “legendary” in the family’s cover story for British Vogue.
“It’s everything. You really don’t remember life before, that’s the craziest thing ever,” she said. “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.”
Rihanna headlined the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, where she also revealed her second pregnancy.
Despite not releasing a new album in seven years, Rihanna was tapped to headline the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, joining the ranks of legends like Beyoncé, Madonna, and Prince.
For her first live performance since 2019, Rihanna delivered a show-stopping medley of hits, from “We Found Love” to “Wild Thoughts,” and broke the internet by revealing her growing baby bump.
She reportedly gave birth to her second child in August 2023.
Sources told People that Rihanna feels her family is “complete” after welcoming her second child with Rocky.
