There’s a long list of celebrities that I desperately want to like me and not end up on their bad side. Probably somewhere near the top of that list is Rihanna — the singer, fashion icon, and beauty mogul is the perfect mix of cool and intimidating that makes me terribly afraid.
Luckily, she’s never set her clapback sights on me, but she did just fire at a new target: President Donald Trump.
RELATED STORIES
In her newest feature for Vogue, Rihanna did not hold back when talking about politics.
When asked how she felt after the back-to-back shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Rihanna replied , ““It is devastating. People are being murdered by war weapons that they legally purchase. This is just not normal. That should never, ever be normal.”
The interview specifically addressed her tweets after the incidents.
As Vogue states , “Trump called the El Paso shooting ‘an act of cowardice’ and said both were the result of a ‘mental illness problem.’ Rihanna responded, ‘Um . . . Donald, you spelled terrorism wrong!'”
Rihanna continued, “The fact that it’s classified as something different because of the color of their skin?”
“It’s a slap in the face. It’s completely racist ,” she continued. “Put an Arab man with that same weapon in that same Walmart and there is no way that Trump would sit there and address it publicly as a mental health problem.”
“The most mentally ill human being in America right now seems to be the president.”
However, Rihanna doesn’t feel like the political situation is totally hopeless. Later on in the interview, she said, “I feel like the darkness has actually forced people to find this light within them where they want to do better.”
“It’s easy when you think everything is going really well and perfect.”
“When everything is flowers and butterflies and you’re in your own bubble and your own world. But to see it, to know it’s happening—it pushes you to want to be the light in the world.”
That’s something we can all get behind.
Rihanna also spoke about the rumors that she had turned down the Superbowl Halftime Show in support of Colin Kaepernick.
“Absolutely,” she said. “I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people,” she added, and continued on in a way that some people have interpreted as shade towards Jennifer Lopez, who was recently announced as the Halftime performer.
“I just couldn’t be a sellout.”
“I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
Rihanna has often used her platform to try to urge people to get political.
After encouraging her followers to vote in the midterms in November, someone commented on her Instagram to ask, “Are you even a US citizen? Honest curiosity.”
Rihanna’s response was not holding back.
“Nah I’m an immigrant tryna get yo country together. Did u vote?” She wrote.
Rihanna was asked what she would say to young immigrants living in America,and her response was heartbreaking.
“What do you say? What can you say? It’s gonna get better? I almost feel sick to my stomach. I don’t even believe this is happening in real life.”
Rihanna is currently living in London, but she doesn’t feel like she’s separated from everything that’s happening.
“When I see something happen to any woman, a woman of any minority, kids, black men being murdered in the streets—I can’t remove myself from that.”
