Inside Rihanna and A$AP Rocky’s Epic Love Story
How Rihanna and A$AP Rocky Reacted to His Not Guilty Verdict
Rihanna was not in a rush to settle down.
She wasn’t too busy to date or have fun, but the “Diamonds” singer always had a full plate, whether she was recording eight platinum-selling albums, winning awards, touring, being a style icon, designing clothes or launching her instantly revered Fenty Beauty brand.
None of that has changed. Rihanna, who’s turning 37 on Feb. 20, is still as in demand as ever (and any time would be a good time to drop album No. 9)âbut after going ’round and around with guys who weren’t the one, she wanted A$AP Rocky to stay. (And she has been standing by him ever since.)
“We’ve known each other for a long time,” the Unapologetic artistâwho shares sons RZA Athelston, 2, and Riot Rose, 18 months, with the rapperâtold stylist Mel Ottenberg for Interview last spring. “I’ve seen him in relationships. He’s seen me in relationships. We’ve seen each other outside of relationships. We knew what we’re capable of, and the trouble that we could bring to each other’s lives. We can make or break each other’s hearts. And so, we started dating with a lot of caution.”
But once they got together, they had a hit on their hands.
“I just let whatever was supposed to happen, happen,” Rihanna continued. “It was just, ‘This is a flower. It’s either going to die or blossom. But I’m going to let it decide itself.'”
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Starting out in the friend zone for the better part of a decade, the artist born Rakim Mayers confirmed one of the more shabbily-kept secrets among the celebrity set when he called Rihanna “the love of my life” in an interview with GQ for its June/July 2021 issue.
She’s “my lady,” he declared happily.
After that, they were just full-on, matching-at-the-Met-Gala, dancing-from-the-front-row boyfriend and girlfriend.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
But as 2021 drew to a close, eagle-eyed fans who were used to daily accounts of Rihanna’s comings-and-goings thanks to her ubiquitous paparazzi escort started to wonder…
And sure enough, after making some strategic style choices for a few months, she let it be known Jan. 31, 2022, that she was pregnant.
“It was harder for me to keep it from my posse, because they’re around me, they know my habits,” she told E!’s Justin Sylvester the next month at a Fenty Beauty/Fenty Skin event. “They’re like, ‘You don’t want something to drink? You’re not smoking?’ And I’m eating all the things I’m not used to eating. They know I hate sweets and I’m all of a sudden asking for cookies and donuts. But finally, I just had to let it all out, and they were all shocked, of course, as the world was shocked as well.”
Shocked and awwwwed, if you will.
Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
But new yen for sugar aside, it was only so much of a surprise, Rihanna having been pretty clear for years about her desire to have children one day (while also admittedly being alarmed by the birthing part).
She said in Interview magazine in 2010 that she ideally wanted a family, though as a daughter of divorced parents, she was perfectly aware that saying “I do” didn’t necessarily mean everything.
“I don’t know if I’ll be married or anything,” the Barbados-born singer said of starting a family. “But however the father is in the child’s life, he’s going to be in the child’s entire life.”
Also noting that life “never works out according to the book,” she added, “I’m just saying that whatever comes my way I’ll be able to handle it. But in a perfect book, there would be marriage and kids.”
Also only 22 at the time, she noted, “I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids so… whenever the time is right, I’ll just know. I don’t really plan on the age. It could be a year from now. It could be 10 years from now. Whenever is right.”
In the wake of the turbulence of dating Chris Brown (in 2010 the “Run It” singer was still on probation for assaulting Rihanna in 2009 after a pre-Grammys party), she was seeing then-L.A. Dodgers star Matt Kemp. They amicably parted ways in 2011 and she found her way back to Brown, telling Rolling Stone in early 2013 that she knew public opinion wasn’t on their side, but “I decided it was more important for me to be happy.”
“Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake,” she said.
Just months later, however, Rihanna told Glamour that she couldn’t wait to be a mother but was “nowhere close” to making that a reality, adding, “I don’t even have a potential baby daddy!”
Well, she kinda did, she just didn’t know it yet.
A$AP Rocky had joined forces with Rihanna to record a remix of her song “Cockiness (Love It)” in 2012, which they then performed together at the MTV Video Music Awards that Septemberâpart of her medley with, ahem, “We Found Love.”
The audience would’ve been forgiven for thinking something was up between them.
“I didn’t mean for the ass grab to be the thing,” A$AP told Complex in November 2012 about giving her bum a squeeze as he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek after spitting out his verse. “I don’t fiend for fake publicity s–t.”
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
He continued, in a more gentlemanly fashion, “Rihanna is what I want to be, as far as having a big core following. She’s very successful. She’s been doing it for years. Think about it. ‘Pon de Replay’….So ’05, ’06, ’07, ’08, ’09, ’10, ’11, ’12…. She’s got seven years in this s–t. Shout-outs to that young lady, and hopefully, with the grace of God, seven years from now, I can say the same.”
Rihanna coolly disentangled herself in the blink of an eye at the VMAs, but everyone wanted to ask A$AP about that moment, wanting to know whether it was planned or spontaneousâand whether she was OK with it. “I got like this cocky holy ghost that came into me,” he explained to Hot 97’s Angie Martinez. “We had fun, we had a great time and I thank her for that. I doubt I could get that close if she didn’t want me to do something like that.”
Or…not.
“He grabbed my ass on stage. That was not part of the rehearsal!” Rihanna told Vogue in 2022. “I was like, What are you doing?!” But she remembered her manager quipping that she must like him at least a little, because she didn’t give him hell for his impertinence.
Their professional chemistry, at least, was off the charts, as A$AP then spent three months in early 2013 as the opening act on Rihanna’s Diamonds World Tour.
“That was a special request,” A$AP said on Power 106 when asked how that coveted call to join her about (before the interview descended into jokes about grabbing butts).
Before the tour even started, though, the “L$D” artist started dating Chanel Iman, and they were reportedly engaged for a couple of months before breaking up in 2014. “I got really depressed because I knew that she deserves better than me,” A$AP told MTV in March 2015. “That’s the truth and everybody knows it. And I don’t wanna be the guy to Lauryn Hill her, if you know what I’m saying.”
Was he talking about “that thing”?
“I’m just saying, just to be mature about things in lifeâI do know where I am in lifeâI’m still having fun and I’m young and I need to focus on my career,” he explained. “I still have her [as a friend]. She’s still in my life. It’s a win/win situation.”
The Grammy-nominated “F–kin’ Problems” artist and Rihanna stayed friends and occasional collaborators all the while, A$AP returning for a few later dates on the Diamonds tour while she starred in his November 2013 video for “Fashion Killa.”
Though they went on to date others, A$AP has since pinpointed New York’s Mercer Hotel, where they shot that Virgil Abloh-directed video in 2013, as the hopeful place Rihanna fell in love with him.
“I knew from when we were younger,” the 36-year-old told W in October. “We both did, I think. So it was only right when we got older. We just kind of reconnected.”
In the meantime, their paths kept crossing, and A$AP wasn’t shy about letting it be known that he was admiring her from afar.
But never too far out of each other’s orbit, “We saw fashion the same. We saw creative the same,” Rihanna said in Interview last year. “We ended up in the same circles a lot. And past that, when we grew up, we ended up supporting each other’s brands and products and creative all the time. I would wear his s–t, he would show up to my launches. But it wasn’t until the end of 2019…”
Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock
That December, A$AP and Rihannaâwho previously dated Hassan Jameel for three yearsâelegantly posed on the red carpet at the British Fashion Awards. They were then spotted looking chummy backstage at the Yams Day Benefit Concert in January 2020.
Rihanna told British Vogue in early 2020, when asked where she pictured herself after another decade, “Ten years? I’ll be 42! I’ll be ancient. I’ll have kidsâthree or four of ’em.”
And would she be up for starting a family herself if Mr. Right didn’t come along?
“Hell, yeah,” she replied. “I feel like society makes me want to feel like, ‘Oh, you got it wrong⊒ They diminish you as a mother if there’s not a dad in your kids’ lives. But the only thing that matters is happiness, that’s the only healthy relationship between a parent and a child. That’s the only thing that can raise a child truly, is love.”
“Since I turned 32, I’m realizing life is really short,” she continued. “You don’t have a lot of time to tolerate s–t, you know? You put so much on your plate. When you’re overwhelmed, you need to start cutting things out. And I’m overwhelmed too much. What’s happening now is that I’m going back to black and white. My gray area is shutting down.”
Ultimately, she concluded, “I’ve always searched for what I can hold on to in terms of sanity and loyalty. I’ve always searched for what’s real.”
Not long after she gave that interview, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and the world as she knew itâlive music, in-person events and meetings, etc.âshut down. Paparazzi were reduced to snapping celebs jogging and walking their dogs.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
That summer Rihanna tapped A$AP to be a face of Fenty Skin and they both had a bit of a glow while teaming up to promote the brand (albeit not in the same room, due to the pandemic). She quizzed him in a “Face to Face” video for GQ while he tossed 15 questions her way for Vogue. Asked what the hardest part of working with her was, A$AP replied that it was “not goofing off and laughing the whole time…The hardest part is not having too much fun.”
But they got super close when they drove from Los Angeles to New York together (on a luxury tour bus), taking in the sights at a few national parks and soaking up the vibes in culturally rich cities like Memphis along the way.
“I met myself,” A$AP told GQ when asked who he met on the road trip. “Being able to drive and do a tour without feeling like it was an occupation or an obligated job agreement, I feel like that experience is like none other. I never experienced nothing like it.”
He also took the opportunity to record over that summer, and said in December 2020 that his fourth album, Don’t Be Dumb, was finished. (While it’s now supposedly slated for 2025, like his beloved, A$AP has been in no hurry to drop a new LP.)
He had told GQ that his new music was “absolutely” influenced by his relationship, saying, “I think it’s important to have somebody that you can bounce those creative juices and ideas off of.”
Rihanna reflected to Vogue about their intimate journey, “He became my family in that time. I cooked our food on this little janky grill I bought from Walmart. I still have it, too. It works like nobody’s business. I love the simple things but also the grand adventures. There’s no pretentious my-brand-your-brand bulls–t, it’s just us living. I just feel like I can do any part of life by his side.”
A$AP didn’t go to a club for almost a year due to the pandemic, but when he did finally venture out againâto West Hollywood nightspot Delilahâit was with Rihanna in early 2021. They had already been in Barbados together over Christmas, but still trying to not be too obvious about it, they arrived in different cars, a few minutes apart. They also left separately, but went home in the same car.
Gotham/GC Images
Asked what it was like being in a committed relationship after years of being a proud ladies’ man, A$AP told GQ, “So much better. So much better when you got the One. She amounts to probably, like, a million of the other ones. I think when you know, you know. She’s the One.”
After he mentioned his dad, who emigrated from Barbados to the U.S. and settled in New York, where A$AP was born, GQ asked him if he was ready for fatherhood.
“If that’s in my destiny, absolutely,” he said, adding, “I think I’d be an incredible, remarkably, overall amazing dad. I would have a very fly child. Very.”
Hard to disagree with that take.
“How the gang pulled up to black history month,” Rihanna captioned a Feb. 2, 2022, post, a series of photos revealing her bare pregnant belly, her first Instagram acknowledgment that she was expecting their first child together.Â
“When I first found out, it’s not real, you know? I was like, ‘This is not for real, right?'” she told E! 10 days later. “And then, it’s almost like you don’t want to get too excited too soon because it’s great news, but you want to see that it’s going to see its way through. And I’m so glad that we’re this far along and now I can celebrate with everyone.”
Rihanna continued to be a one-woman runway show when it came to au courant pregnancy style, telling Vogue, “I’m hoping that we were able to redefine what’s considered ‘decent’ for pregnant women. “My body is doing incredible things right now, and I’m not going to be ashamed of that. This time should feel celebratory.”
And, while she skipped the 2022 Met Gala, a marble statue inspired by the silhouette she showed off on her May Vogue cover was installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. No big deal.
Diggzy/Shutterstock
She admitted to the magazine that being friends with A$AP for so long worked both for and against himâthough ultimately the chips fell in his favor. “People don’t get out of the friend zone very easily with me,” she explained. “And I certainly took a while to get over how much I know him and how much he knows me, because we also know how much trouble we can land each other in.”
Then Rihanna’s mom Monica gave her seal of approval.
“My mother has a really good read on people,” Rihanna shared. “She observes first and then she’ll move slowly. I guess I’m like that too. There are some guys that I’ve dated that she won’t even look at to this day. But she was charmed by him from the jump.”
Christopher Polk/NBC via Getty Images
And having a baby with A$AP only strengthened their bond. “We’re best friends, with a baby,” she told British Vogue for a March 2023 cover story featuring the first photos of the couple with little RZA. “We have to be on the same page, but we’ve always kind of had that in our relationship. Everything changes when you have a baby but I wouldn’t say it’s done anything but made us closer.”Â
By then the world knew that baby No. 2 was on the way, Rihanna’s 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show performance having also served as a nationally televised pregnancy reveal, the artist strategically camouflaging and then accenting her bump in a Loewe jumpsuit, bra plate and custom AlaĂŻa coat.
A few months after Riot Rose was born, she told E! News that December she had her “fingers crossed” for a girl next time, hinting that she and A$AP weren’t done growing their family.
But come what may, in the meantime her sons “bring purpose to every aspect of my life,” Rihanna told E! News’ Francesca Amiker at Fenty Beauty’s Soft’Lit Naturally Luminous Longwear Foundation launch in April 2024. “Everything has to be intentional, and everything has to be worth itâespecially when it takes me away from them.”
“It makes me feel really cool to be a boy mom,” she added. “I get to be as casual and busted as I want to, but it also forces me to embrace the epic things about being a woman and female and all my femininityâI embrace it so much more now.”
And to think, A$AP was ready to embrace every epic thing about Rihanna more than a decade ago. Read on to see the couple’s blooming love story in photos:
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
September 2012
In 2012, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky performed their hit “Cockiness” at the MTV Video Music Awards, and their number was so good it deserved a trophy. This wouldn’t be the last time the two shared the stage as they went on tour together in 2013.
ASAPROCKYUPTOWN / YouTube
September 2013
Fans had this song on replay after Rihanna and A$AP Rocky released the music video for “Fashion Killa” in 2013.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
June 2018
As the years went on, they remained friends. In 2018, they attended the Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring/Summer 2019 show as part of Paris Fashion Week and, of course, they totally slayed.
Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock
December 2019
They also attended The Fashion Awards in 2019, with Rihanna dazzling in a mint Fenty dress and A$AP Rocky looking sharp in a black suit.
Arturo Holmes/MG21/Getty Images
September 2021
Met Gala official! Rihanna and A$AP Rocky attended the 2021 Met Gala together in style, with the “Umbrella” singer wearing a black Balenciaga gown and the “A$AP Forever” artist donning a custom ERL quilt and a tuxedo.
Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
February 2022
After announcing they were expecting their first baby, Rihanna recalled keeping her pregnancy a secret from her friends. “It was harder for me to keep it from my posse, because they’re around me, they know my habits,” she told E!’s Justin Sylvester. “They’re like, ‘You don’t want something to drink? You’re not smoking?’ And I’m eating all the things I’m not used to eating. They know I hate sweets and I’m all of a sudden asking for cookies and donuts. But finally, I just had to let it all out, and they were all shocked, of course, as the world was shocked as well.”
Diggzy/Shutterstock
February 2022
SOS! These photos are so sweet! As Rihanna and A$AP prepared for their bundle of joy, she continued to show her incredible pregnancy style.
ASAPROCKYUPTOWN / YouTube
May 2022
While fans wondered if A$AP Rocky had proposed to Rihanna after seeing them sport the words “Marry me?” and “I do” across their teeth in his “D.M.B.” video, sources close to the couple told TMZ in May 2022 the two aren’t engaged.
Amy Sussman/WireImage
May 2022
And baby makes three! Multiple outlets report that the couple welcomed a baby in Los Angeles.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
February 2023
She debuted her second pregnancy during the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show.
Getty Images
May 2023
The pair take the 2023 Met Gala together in honor of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld.Â
Antony Jones/Getty Images for Spotify
June 2023
Rihanna accompanied A$AP Rocky during his performance at a Spotify party in Cannes, France.
Jackson Lee/GC Images
August 2023
The couple welcomed their second child, son Riot. One month later, they shared their first photos as a family of four in a rare photoshoot.Â
Jackson Lee/GC Images
April 2024
Rihanna confirmed her romance with A$AP began at the end of 2019.Â
“I’ve seen him in relationships. He’s seen me in relationships,” she explained of their long history. “We knew what we’re capable of, and the trouble that we could bring to each other’s lives. We can make or break each other’s hearts. And so, we started dating with a lot of caution.” Â
(Originally published Feb. 20, 2022, at 5 a.m. PT)
Watch E! News weeknights Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m., only on E!.
