Rihanna warns fans to quit asking about new album: ‘I’m trying to save the world’
Last fall, Vogue asked Rihanna if her busy schedule — which includes running her Clara Lionel Foundation as well as her growing list of fashion and beauty lines — left her with enough time to record new music for her long-awaited ninth studio album, which her fans have taken to obsessing over on social media.
She told the outlet she’d been “trying to get back into the studio,” but no longer had “the luxury” of spending any “extended amount of time” in there, adding that she’s aware the delay has given her “some very unhappy fans who don’t understand the inside bits of how it works.”
Unfortunately, one such fan chimed in on an Instagram Live Rihanna posted on Friday, April 10, asking about “R9” while the singer was trying to have a little mid-quarantine, home dancefloor fun at her inaugural “Fenty Social Club Party.”
Her response?
“If one of y’all [expletives] ask me about the album one more time when I’m trying to save the world unlike y’all president …,” she warned users, according to USA Today.
In the past, Rihanna’s tended to joke with her fans — or straight-up troll them — when they beg her for a follow-up to 2016’s “Anti.” At the end of 2019, for example, she shared a video of a dog rocking out to House of Pain’s “Jump Around.” “Update: me listening to R9 by myself and refusing to release,” she quipped the caption.
She was more serious this time because, well, she has been working on the album, but also because of the
enormous amount of time and money she’s devoted to fighting the coronavirus crisis in recent weeks.
On Thursday, Rihanna announced her foundation is co-funding a $4.2 million grant with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that will “…enable the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles to provide 10 weeks of support for victims of domestic abuse including shelter, meals and counseling for individuals and their children,” according to a press release.
The fund is a response to news of a dangerous escalation in domestic violence during the pandemic, as stay-home orders across the country isolate victims, often with their abusers
Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation has also donated $2 million to New York City and L.A.-based healthcare workers, first responders, incarcerated people and those who are elderly or homeless. The organization previously committed $5 million to support food banks, coronavirus testing and treatment, and the provision of protective equipment for healthcare workers.
All of that didn’t seem to matter much to some commenters on Instagram, who responded to a promotional post about Rihanna’s Fenty IG Live party with more demands for the album’s release.
“She’s trying to save the world (US) right now,” one fan told another in the comments. “Gang chill.”
