Bright Young Thing.(Rihanna)(Interview)

Bright Young Thing

Just a few years ago, Robyn Rihanna Fenty was scolded by her neighbors in Barbados for singing too loudly in the shower. But now that she has

two platinum albums, no one seems to be complaining. By Brooke Hauser

As the most famous entertainer ever to hail from Barbados, Rihanna feels a certain obligation to educate the world about her native island, which is a formation of coral and limestone with coasts on the Atlantic and the Caribbean. "People ask me the most naive questions. Someone asked me if we have indoor toilets," she says. "I can't get upset. They just don't know." On a recent trip to New York City, the 19-year-old pop star and unofficial ambassador found herself assuring a driver that, yes, there are roads in Barbados. She is accustomed to explaining that the locals are called Barbadians or Bajans (pronounced "BAY-jans"), and they speak English, as well as the Barbadian dialect (an English patois). For example, if a Bajan tells you, "You look starve out," you should probably take a second helping of macaroni pie, a regional staple. However, if a Bajan tells you that your ass is "fat" or "juicy," take it as a compliment, Rihanna says: "While in America beautiful is skinny, in Barbados it's thick -- girls with huge butts and nice curves." This crisp evening in Manhattan, busy seeing and being seen at her favorite downtown restaurant, Da Silvano, Rihanna hardly looks "thick." Rocking a bruise-colored combo of skinny jeans with electric blue snakeskin boots by Valentino and a matching turtleneck, she looks rather slim and sleek -- as if she'd just stepped off the pages of a graphic novel. But even though the new Rihanna has left the beach far behind, Bajans embrace their homegrown star. "My friends still live in Barbados, and they let me know that everyone asks for the 'Rihanna haircut,'" she says, referring to the slashed, inky black bob showcased on the cover of her third and latest album, Good Girl Gone Bad. Rihannamania has taken hold of the rest of the world, too. Perhaps you've heard the song "Umbrella," which stayed at number one for a solid seven weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and has topped charts around the globe, or seen the ubiquitous music video for the rock anthem "Shut Up and Drive," featuring the teenager as a smoking-hot car mechanic in leopard-print stilettos. Three years after she signed a deal with Def Jam president and CEO Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, the Bajan beauty turned international "It" girl is reveling in her big moment. These days, Rihanna can't go anywhere without being recognized, sometimes by the least likely of fans. Seconds after she stepped out of a black SUV in the West Village, a homeless man in tattered clothes materialized on the sidewalk. "Rihanna! Rihanna!" he shouted, putting out his hand. "Can I borrow $20?" (In fact, the pop star recognized the man, who had asked her once before to borrow two dollars; she gave him a twenty instead. So much for shedding her good-girl rep.) In the space of an hour, Rihanna is approached three times by different people at dinner. When one determined mother interrupts the singer by pushing a pen and paper onto her table in the hopes of getting an autograph for her 18-year-old daughter, Rihanna smiles sweetly and says she'll be happy to oblige, but later. "The hardest thing for me is to say no," she explains, removing her black shades to reveal eyes the cloudy green of beach glass. "I feel like a bitch. But sometimes I don't have a choice." For the most part, Rihanna enjoys her celebrity. And as the new darling of TMZ cameramen and tabloid paparazzi, she tries to take the constant stalking and gossiping in stride. The singer has been romantically linked with everyone from her mentor Jay-Z ("Don't people know by now that it's a stupid rumor?" she asks) to the actor Shia LaBeouf, and most recently Josh Hartnett, whom she met this fall while hosting MTV's Total Request Live in New York City. This is what really happened," she says, her eyes once again obscured by her oversize shades. "He and my management, they have each other's contact information. I went to [the club] Pink Elephant, and he came by. All of a sudden, the next day, I'm seeing that we were kissing and hugging up each other. You can't even go out with a friend who's a celebrity and have a good time without people making shit up." She examines her nails, painted a deep glossy red. "Well, at least he's good-looking, right?" Spend a few hours with Rihanna and you'll soon meet Robyn; a girl with a wide-open laugh, she eats Cheetos by the fistful and loves her strawberry-flavored Bubblicious gum. With her toy poodle, DJ Oliver, on her lap, she turns up the car radio whenever Ne-Yo's remix of "Do You" featuring Mary J. Blige comes on and sings along. Even though she hangs out with mostly old people -- "I mean, people in their 30s," she says, raising her eyebrows for emphasis -- she finds ways to indulge her inner teenager. One way is by traveling with her loquacious best friend and fellow Bajan, 21-year-old Leandra Goodridge, who describes Rihanna/Robyn as a trickster whose idea of a good time is to watch horror movies and punk her friends. (Here is a classic Rihanna prank you can try at home with your girlfriends: Watch the zombie flick 28 Weeks Later. That night, when one of your friends is in the shower, turn off the lights and, doing your best undead impression, bang loudly on the door.) "As soon as she's comfortable, she will play a prank on you," says Goodridge, who has a modified version of the Rihanna haircut and a nose stud. "Every single day, I've got to be on my guard." Oh -- and, Goodridge says, "No one calls her Rihanna." The difference between Rihanna and Robyn is often, quite literally, night and day. The slithery bad-girl image that she promotes onstage and in the clubs seems to be at odds with the conscientious hard worker whom her closest friends and family know and love. As anyone knows from the escapades of Britney or Lindsay, Hollywood starlets sometimes protest too much about their partying habits. But in Rihanna's case, clean living is an absolute conviction, at least when it comes to drugs. "People don't do them around me. I would never allow it," says the star, who now lives in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. "The people who are around me are people that I love, and I don't want to see people that I love hurt themselves." Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty in St. Michael, Barbados, where her mother, Monica, is a retired accountant who now owns a clothing boutique, and her father, Ronald, is a warehouse supervisor at a garment factory, the singer witnessed the slow demise of her parents' marriage, largely due to her

father's substance abuse. Once a daddy's girl, she, along with her two younger brothers, Rajad and Rorrey, lost their father to drugs for a time. "My mom would take us to see him, and he would be in the worst condition," she recalls. "She stopped taking us because she didn't want us to see him like that." (Rihanna's parents divorced following a lengthy separation when she was 16, and her father is now drug-free; he even came along for half of her recent Canadian tour.) Because Monica worked long hours, Rihanna essentially became a second mother to her brothers, making sure that they took their showers and did their homework. Instead of playing outside, she tidied up around the house and cooked dinner, such as curry or chow mein. In school, she earned good grades, but she got into the occasional physical fight with other girls. They picked on Rihanna -- whose mother is Guyanese and whose father is "black and white," as the singer puts it -- for having a fair complexion: "I was a little confused as a kid because I grew up with my mom, and my mom is black. So, I was cultured in a very 'black' way. But when I go to school, I'm getting called 'white.'" Rihanna says, "They would look at me, and they would curse me out. I didn't understand. I just knew I saw people of all different shades, and I was light. Now, I'm in a much bigger world." In fact, Rihanna, who later won her high school's beauty pageant, is now a spokeswoman for Cover Girl. Her experiences haven't hardened her so much as simply prepared her for the topsy-turvy -- and often unkind -- world of show business. From a young age, she knew she wanted to be not just a singer but an international star. Growing up, she used to sing ballads by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey in her shower at the top of her lungs, much to her neighbors' chagrin. "They'd complain to my other neighbor, who was very close to my mom, so we always got the message: I'm so loud," Rihanna says, with a wave of her hand. "But we didn't really care. They can't tell me what to do in my house!" In her early teens, she parlayed her shower-singing skills into a spot in a girl group. One of her classmates who knew Rihanna's ambitions happened to have a connection to the American songwriter and producer Evan Rogers (who, with Carl Sturken, has helped shape the careers of Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, and Christina Milian). In the summer of 2003, when Rogers was vacationing in Barbados, a meeting was arranged. The 15-year-old auditioned in the producer's hotel, ...