photos via rihannadaily.com

‘Being size zero is a career in itself – it’s not realistic and it’s not healthy’

The singer’s flair for fashion is such that, according to her European stylists Damian and Avigail, ‘Rihanna is the magic word to designers’. At our shoot she made the beautiful ballgowns her own by adding details such as a Nora Batty hairnet – pulled down below her eyes – that somehow, bafflingly, looked fabulous and edgy. Her fashion mantra is ‘be yourself’ and the people she admires – she mentions Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga, Grace Jones and British singer La Roux – she likes because they dare ‘to be different from the rest’. Her individualistic approach to clothes, her refusal to diet (although she admits to sometimes getting strict with herself if she gets ‘out of control’) and her shapely rather than skinny silhouette (she weighs nine and a half stone) make her a great role model for young girls, with a refreshing take on the insidious size zero obsession of the fashion industry.

‘You shouldn’t be pressured into trying to be thin by the fashion industry, because they only want models that are like human mannequins. They know that if we see an outfit on a mannequin in a shop window we will love it and want to buy it whatever size we are. That’s why they have size zero models – they want to sell clothes. But you have to remember that it’s not practical or possible for an everyday woman to look like that. Being size zero is a career in itself so we shouldn’t try and be like them. It’s not realistic and it’s not healthy,’ she says with real feeling.

On rare days off she likes to do something ‘normal’ like watch comedy shows or movies: she has been offered acting roles herself and says she would like to start with comedy (she is naturally funny, so perhaps a ‘romcom, something that’s fun’). She has a tight social circle, just a few of whom are famous – she ‘hangs out’ with Jay-Z and Beyoncé, is close to Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Mary J Blige, and counts Katy Perry as a ‘real friend’ with whom she has vacationed and is in constant contact.

‘Russell Brand and Katy make such a perfect couple. I met him a few years ago when he interviewed me, and became friends with Katy later, and it’s so funny because I would never have put the two of them together. But then when she told me it made so much sense. I was like, “Of course you guys would be together, you are both hilarious and rude and disrespectful, it’s perfect.” You can really see that they are just so in love.’

Rihanna has no idea what the future holds (‘ten years ago I would never have thought this would be it, so I am excited to find out what’s next’), but music remains important, and, as well as acting, she likes the idea of designing and one day ‘definitely, definitely having children’. In the short term, she says with a grin, she will probably be adding to her tattoos (discreetly hidden, these include ‘Shhh…’ on the back of a finger, her star sign behind her ear, and the message ‘Never a failure always a lesson’ on her collarbone).

‘I have 13 at the moment – a music note on my ankle, a skull with a bow on its head behind my ankle, a Sanskrit prayer here [going down her hip] and ‘Freedom in Christ’ in Arabic writing here on my wrist – oh, and a gun! I will probably carry on until I run out of cool little places to put them,’ she says, laughing as she shows them to me.

Beneath the surface – under those tattoos and behind that swagger – Rihanna is a surprisingly normal, incredibly polite and engaging 22-year-old. Even that formidable entourage, it turns out, is actually a tight-knit group of people, most of whom have been with her ‘since the beginning’.

‘I don’t see them as an entourage,’ she says, as she takes me to meet Melissa and the rest of her team. ‘When you are with the same people – especially when you are on tour – it changes. It becomes like a family.’

RiRi doesn’t get home to Barbados as much as she would like – perhaps once or twice a year – but she talks to her mother (whom she calls her ‘inspiration’) at least once a day. She is also a dutiful sister to her brothers, encouraging them to get good grades (neither brother has show-business ambitions: 20-year-old Rorrey is studying to be an architect and 13-year-old Rajad is a ‘little nerd’, obsessed with computer science).

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