Rihanna got candid about raising her 9-month-old son with A$AP Rocky in the public eye, calling paparazzi "icky" for taking photos of him without their consent, according to an interview with British Vogue.
While posing for a family photo shoot for the fashion magazine in December, Rihanna said paparazzi were caught taking photos of her son down the Malibu beach.
"I just went straight into protective mode," Rihanna recalled of the situation. "Like there wasn’t even time for rage. [Rocky and me] drove up to the trailer area and we sat in the car chatting and working out how we move forward. As parents it just feels so icky, like a violation."
She said they knew that as she and Rocky discussed the situation, the paparazzi were making calls and deals, but they couldn't stand the thought that the first public glimpse of their son, whose name they haven't shared publicly, would be sold without their consent.
"It’s the thing you never want to happen," she told British Vogue of the incident. "We get to decide as parents when and how we do that. End of story."
"Throw me to the wolves," she said. "Do what you want with me. But he doesn’t have a say in any of this. We’ve been protecting him thus far and you don’t have any consent to be posting photos or selling photos of my child, a minor. Get the hell out of here with that."
Instead, she told Vogue that she sent some camera roll pictures of her son to a "friendly" blogger and then took to TikTok to beat the paparazzi to the punch, posting a 45-second video of her son riding in his car seat, which has garnered nearly 30 million views.
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The singer, actress and businesswoman announced she was pregnant with her second child Sunday, after hinting at the news during her Superbowl performance, rubbing her stomach as she opened the show.
Before she announced her second pregnancy, she told Vogue she wanted to have more kids.
"Listen, I’m down for whatever," she said. "My wish would be I would like to have more kids but whatever God wants for me, I’m here. I’m open, girl, boy, whatever."
Rihanna isn't the only celebrity to talk about the struggles of raising children in the public eye. In an interview this week, Drew Barrymore and Pamela Anderson made headlines in an emotional conversation about Hollywood and motherhood.
Anderson explained to Barrymore the measures she took to ensure her two sons with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee were protected.
"I hired someone to be an assistant PE instructor just to be there ‘cause people were trying to take them off the schoolyard," Anderson said. "I had to find clever ways to kind of make them feel everything was normal, but I needed to know eyes were on them and not, you know, I was not going to take that chance."
"I so understand. I get it," Barrymore said. "Don’t f--- with my kids. This is not OK. They didn’t sign up for this."
