In the manner of Rex Reed, who portrayed Ava Gardner like nobody else, Robyn Rihanna Fenty (Barbados, 35 years old), puts the finishing touches in her luxurious room at the majestic Carlyle Hotel at 35 East 76th Street, at the corner of Madison Avenue, on the Upper East Side of New York. She has long had photographers, guests, and a nervous crowd of burning fans await her on the red carpet of the Metropolitann, where this year a new edition of the Met Gala is being held, the charity event that kicks off the annual exhibition of the Clothing Institute and which this time has Karl Lagerfeld and Penélope Cruz as co-host as ‘leitmotif’. Rihanna is late (a lot) and the assistants decide to settle down inside the museum. The gala is about to start and the diva hasn’t even left the Carlyle, one of Woody Allen’s usual settings and where Mick Jagger has an almost exclusive suite.
But the world always waits for Rihanna, as I expected Ava Gardner or Marilyn Monroe, as I expected Madonna in the 80s and 90slike wait for Beyoncé or start waiting for rosaliagreat dominatrix straddling two decades.
Some Met attendees have arrived four hours early. “Elbowing her way through a mob of autograph hunters and thrill seekers clustered in the lobby…,” Reed recounted of Ava. The great stars emanate that halo of divinity who does not understand reasoning or serene reflections. Any explanation drifts towards the supernatural in the hyperbole kingdom of the ultradivas, in which Rihanna has ended up sweeping the rest of the aspirants to occupy the throne of roses of the ‘starlettes’ of glamor and carpets of any color.
The one from Barbados is an hour late. Or more. Does not matter. The hornet’s nest of photographers and fans is no longer on fire, it is a pyre, a bonfire of vanities whose fire hypnotizes. “She doesn’t see anyone, you know?” (Reed in ‘Do you sleep naked?’, the interview with Ava Gardner that the journalist turned into a masterpiece). The goddess appears next to the rapper A$AP Rocky, his partner, wearing a kilt headdress over inlaid jeans, in a nod to Lagerfeld. The evolution of customs. No diva of yesteryear without hers Frank Sinatra or hers JFK hers or hers Sean Penn. Today they are rappers and reggaeton players. In 2023, they shine more next to extravagance and the surprising charm of the incomprehensible. Faithful to the honoree at the Met, Riri dazzles all in white, hooded under a Valentino coat designed from a ‘cocoon’ cape of camellias, symbolizing the house of Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld himself based on Coco’s inspiration in those dandies who carried the oriental flower pinned to the lapel. Rihanna, the lady of the camellias.
super bowl
And suddenly, Rihanna’s pregnant belly, Rihanna’s arms, Rihanna’s shoulders, Rihanna’s eyelashes, Rihanna’s glasses, Rihanna’s mittens, and Rihanna’s bracelet. A $ AP Rocky will take her place in the chronicles, but all the flashes, phones and eyes are on every detail of this woman who symbolizes the new R & B (read aranbi) like few others. empowerment, femininity, motherhood, and above all, business.
Related news
If a Spaniard is asked who won the Super Bowl, it is most likely that he does not remember it or that he shows a pretentious disinterest in a show that is so difficult for us to understand here. However, many saw Rihanna that nightin that intermission that has become one of the most expensive advertising scenarios on the planet, 13 minutes of glory in which Rihanna reeled off the greatest hits of her career after seven years away from the industry. She didn’t charge a dollar. Nobody gets paid to sing in that interregnum, an insignificant fact if 118 million viewers have seen you sing that night and your facet as a businesswoman fattens the bank account more than that of a singer. Nor is it that the star of the Met 2023 needed to earn money from the Super Bowl. This year, Beyoncé took the Grammys, but she is below the Rihanna’s $1.4 billion estateMadonna’s 575, Taylor Swift’s 570 and Céline Dion’s 470 million.
Back at the Carlyle, the throne awaits Rihanna. There and anywhere, wherever she wants her to go, always late, she is always ready for the world to wait for her.