Rihanna is famous for her “what-the-fuck-ever” attitude and we all (okay, some of us) love her for it. All she does is smoke, drink, give money to strippers, Instagram selfies and repost photos of herself from others and oh yeah, sometimes she sings and performs. I’ve always loved RiRi and always will, but I still recognise that she’s a damn mess.
Still, Rihanna knows this about herself and doesn’t care. As she’s repeatedly said – she’s never aimed to be a role model for anyone and is still young and working on her shit. Is that an excuse for some of the stuff she does? No, but who exactly does she owe an explanation? Well, Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones – aka Satan incarnate (LOL, I sorta kid) – thinks Ri owes EVERYONE an explanation, an apology and a better public figure for young girls to look up to. She dedicated an entire column to Rihanna’s exploits, featuring such turns of phrase as the below:
While Rihanna knows when to tone it down in order to pull in advertising deals and keep her record label sweet — so much so that she has enough dollar bills to use them as a carpet, and so many diamonds she can pretend to smoke them in a spliff, both things she’s been pictured doing — the message she’s sending to her young fans, through her explicit lyrics, vile dance moves and pictures on Twitter, is utterly toxic.
This poisonous pop princess should come with a government health warning.
Well… no. While I do agree public figures should keep in mind that younger fans may look to them as sources of inspiration and may want to mimic their behaviour, ultimately it is not a stranger’s job to raise your kids. If you don’t want your 12-year-old daughter rolling blunts and seeking boyfriends that punch her to show their love, maybe instill in her other qualities and have an open dialogue about the issues so that she is aware of them – and aware of your awareness of them – and see how that goes?
In any case, whether you agree with Liz Jones or not, Rihanna certainly didn’t and she took to her Instagram page to air her out publicly:
Damn. Well, there’s that.