Rihanna, the hurricane that passed through Brazil four times; remember some moments

Who really won the Super Bowl final? You probably won’t even know it, unless you’re part of the tiny group of American football fans in Brazil. But that Rihanna did a 13-minute halftime show, it’s hard not to have at least heard about it, after all her name was among the most commented subjects in the world during almost the entire morning of this Monday (13).

If the show was already in the news, imagine if she appeared pregnant with her second child with rapper A$AP Rocky, less than a year after the birth of her firstborn, of whom little has been seen in pictures and to this day, not even the name is known? So it is. All this media combo happened in the middle of the match between Kansas City and Philadelphia Eagles, and for the Brazilians who watched those scenes, there was a certain feeling of absence.

Absence of a star who was in the country four times, and in all of them he behaved in his own way: without making concessions and without ceasing to have fun. Whether diving at night on a beach that, perhaps she didn’t know, had polluted waters; whether smoking a homemade cigarette (and posting the photo of this moment on Instagram), going to a gay nightclub or running into the entire Vogue team, who had reserved an entire floor of the Fasano hotel, in Ipanema, for her and her team. “Everybody was waiting for her, and Rihanna just didn’t show up. She preferred to rent a house elsewhere”, she tells the F5 the editorial director of the magazine at the time, Daniela Falcão. Below, remember some curiosities about the passages of Hurricane Rihanna through Brazil, in 2011, 2014 (twice) and 2015.

SEPTEMBER 2011 – SHOW AT ROCK IN RIO

The day after singing in Brasília, Rihanna was the main attraction of the World Stage in a night in which Claudia Leitte, Katy Perry and Elton John also performed. Staying at the Hotel Fasano, on Ipanema Beach, she delayed her show by almost two hours, which irritated the audience, which began to boo her. She put the crowd in her pocket already in the second song, and left the City of Rock applauded.

Baladeira went out dancing at a gay nightclub with Katy Perry and, when it was time to get to know the city, he did the most popular and touristic circuit there is: he went to see Christ the Redeemer. She won a mini-statue from a fan’s monument, ate snacks from the snack bar and, the day after the show, must not have seen that Claudia Leitte, when criticized for her performance, pinned her on the internet.

“International artists come here, show their asses, are late for 2 hours because they’re having a little party in the dressing room, they can’t reconcile breathing with singing, they don’t prepare shows for our people, they’re out of tune, in short, they don’t care about us , want to kiss on the mouth, go to the beach and drink our cachaça, and we, who pay dearly to watch their ‘shows’ in our land, applaud all of this. Ah! It’s Rock! It’s Pop! It’s good!” Milk.

JANUARY 2014 – ESSAY FOR VOGUE

Chosen by Vogue’s editorial director, Daniela Falcão, to be the cover of the magazine’s 39th anniversary edition, Rihanna has already arrived in Rio giving a look at the publication’s team. “The truth is that she lost us,” recalls Falcão. The journalist says that an entire floor of Fasano had been blocked off for the singer and her entourage. The group’s arrival was scheduled for late afternoon.

At ten o’clock, no sign of them. By telephone, the Vogue team was then informed that all the mobilization had been in vain: at this time, Rihanna was comfortably installed in a house, in a condominium in Praia da Joatinga, in the west zone of the city. “The press hated us because they thought we were hiding it. But we had no idea where it was before, we didn’t even know how it got there, nothing.”

Rihanna wanted the essay and cover photos to be clicked somewhere with a lot of greenery, in a “picturesque fishing village”. Daniela says that, for security reasons, the magazine rented a house in Mangaratiba, 30 kilometers from Angra dos Reis. “It had the look of a fishing village, but a little more stylized.” Nothing done. The Caribbean singer arrived, looked at the house, and saw that in front of it there was an islet, a real fishing village, with very simple houses and without any comfort. “Then she said: ‘This is the perfect location'”, recalls the publisher, who had to hire dozens of speedboats and trawlers to transport the entire team.

JUNE 2014 – FINAL OF THE FOOTBALL WORLD CUP

The 2014 World Cup was followed closely by the singer, who posted photos in various games during the competition. At the invitation of the event’s sponsoring brewery, she came to Rio to watch the final between Germany and Argentina, at Maracanã.

Rihanna this time stayed at the Pestana, on the Copacabana beachfront, and on one of her first nights in the city, she was approached by Anitta when she was leaving the hotel to go to dinner. The carioca funk singer gave vent to her fan side and managed to break through the security guards to ask, ask a lot, for a selfie with her. The photo of Anitta being ignored by her “idol” became a meme on social networks.

Nothing like one day after another. On another occasion, Anitta got a photo with Rihanna, when she found her at a steakhouse. Claudia Leitte also posed hugging the Caribbean pop star. Another moment that became a meme: the singer’s dive, at night, in the polluted waters of Praia da Urca. The sea in that area was unsuitable for swimming, but so what? She wanted to have fun with a friend and ignored the paparazzi who surrounded her. His trip to Rio during the World Cup also resulted in photos with Pelé, with players from the German national team and some posts in which he appears smoking a joint.

SEPTEMBER 2015 – ROCK IN RIO

In her second appearance at Rock in Rio, Rihanna played a long show with little delay. This time, the criticism was for the short and mixed versions of her hits and also for the costume, a yellow set of pants and cape that, guess what?, became a meme.

As in 2011, she stayed at Fasano, in Ipanema. It was at the bar, on the ground floor, that she ended the show with a party. She danced and drank caipirinha and sparkling wine until dawn, alongside guests such as Bruna Marquezine, Thaila Ayala and British model and actress Cara Delevingne.

If in the previous year it was Anitta who paid as a groupie, this was Ludmilla’s turn to move to the other side of the counter. She was monitoring Rihanna’s steps for 48 hours to finally manage to find her, at the Fogo de Chão steakhouse, in Botafogo, in the south zone of Rio, the day after the show. Who warned that the Caribbean singer would be there was her manager. He knew Ludmilla’s agent and passed the coordinates with Rihanna’s location.