Rihanna, a woman who could write the textbook on living your best life, may appear to have a crazy lifestyle, partying and hooking up with lots of dudes (Leo! Travis Scott! etc.), but the truth is very far from that. "I honestly think how much fun it would be to live my reputation," she tells Vanity Fair in its November issue. "People have this image of how wild and crazy I am, and I'm not everything they think of me."
In fact, RiRi's been single for quite some time—"I'm fine being with myself. I don't want to really let anybody in." Her last official boyfriend was Chris Brown in 2012—she confirms they did get back together three years after the 2009 domestic abuse scandal. "I was that girl: that girl who felt that as much pain as this relationship is, maybe some people are built stronger than others," she says. But it ended for a reason:
[I thought] maybe I'm one of those people built to handle shit like this. Maybe I'm the person who's almost the guardian angel to this person, to be there when they're not strong enough, when they're not understanding the world, when they just need someone to encourage them in a positive way and say the right thing. [I thought I could change him,] a hundred percent. I was very protective of him. I felt that people didn't understand him. Even after … But you know, you realize after a while that in that situation you're the enemy. You want the best for them, but if you remind them of their failures, or if you remind them of bad moments in their life, or even if you say I'm willing to put up with something, they think less of you—because they know you don't deserve what they're going to give. And if you put up with it, maybe you are agreeing that you [deserve] this, and that's when I finally had to say, 'Uh-oh, I was stupid thinking I was built for this.' Sometimes you just have to walk away. [Now,] I don't hate him. I will care about him until the day I die. We're not friends, but it's not like we're enemies. We don't have much of a relationship now.
These days, Rihanna isn't playing the field or doing the casual sex thing: "If I wanted to I would completely do that. I am going to do what makes me feel happy, what I feel like doing. But that would be empty for me; that to me is a hollow move. I would wake up the next day feeling like shit. When you love somebody, that's different. Even if you don't love them per se, when you care enough about somebody and you know that they care about you, then you know they don't disrespect you. And it's about my own respect for myself."
And gentlemen today don't impress her either because "now men are afraid to be men. They think being a real man is actually being a pussy, that if you take a chair out for a lady, or you're nice or even affectionate to your girl in front of your boys, you're less of a man. It's so sick. They won't be a gentleman because that makes them appear soft. That's what we're dealing with now, a hundred percent, and girls are settling for that, but I won't. I will wait forever if I have to…but that's okay.
"You have to be screwed over enough times to know, but now I'm hoping for more than these guys can actually give. That's why I haven't been having sex or even really seeing anybody because I don't want to wake up the next day feeling guilty. I mean I get horny, I'm human, I'm a woman, I want to have sex. But what am I going to do—just find the first random cute dude that I think is going to be a great ride for the night and then tomorrow I wake up feeling empty and hollow? He has a great story and I'm like…what am I doing? I can't do it to myself. I cannot. It has a little bit to do with fame and a lot to do with the woman that I am. And that saves me."
RiRi is "fearful of relationships because I feel guilty about wanting someone to be completely faithful and loyal, when I can't even give them 10 percent of the attention that they need. It's just the reality of my time, my life, my schedule." Of course, as Taylor Swift said before her, it'll take a very special person to change things. "A very extraordinary gentleman, with a lot of patience, will come along when I least expect it. And I don't want it right now. I can't really be everything for someone. This is my reality right now." Preach, girl.
Read the rest of her Vanity Fair interview here. She talks about that CFDA naked dress, the one thing she dreams of doing (it's Michelle Obama-level crazy), and how wild her nights really are.
