Recently Rihanna sat down with Sarah Paulson for Interview Magazine to discuss all things love, life, and happiness.
On work/life balance and if it even exists:
“It’s only the last couple years that I started to realize that you need to make time for yourself because your mental health depends on it. If you’re not happy, you’re not going to be happy even doing things that you love doing. It’d feel like a chore. I never want work to feel like a chore. My career is my purpose, and it should never feel like anything other than a happy place. ”
On how she works:
“I will work all day in a meeting, leave that meeting at 1 or 2am, and then come home with a tiny group of staff and work until 5, 7am…I don’t have a sleep pattern. I have sleep pockets. I fit it in when I can….It’s the reason why an album isn’t being spat out like it used to. I used to be in the studio, only the studio, for three months straight, and an album would come out. Now, it’s like a carousel. I do fashion one day, lingerie the next, beauty the next, then music the next. It’s like having a bunch of kids and you need to take care of them all.”
On how she handles criticism from others:
“I’ve always had pretty tough skin—even as a little girl, which was completely due to my parents. They never sheltered me in any way. They would tease me, and I would tease them right back. By the time I got to school, I always had this feeling like the kids were stupid. Maybe that was god’s way of preparing me for what my life was going to be like.”
On being shy (which surprised ME, but not really):
“People don’t know that I’m shy… Because I kind of pretend it’s not happening, people read me as being confident. But I’m so shy I don’t even want you to know I’m shy.”
On who she’s dating…which is the best response ever given to man:
“Google it.”
On prayer:
“Pray… Unless I have to pee or something. I always want to start my day with a little devotion. I buy these devotion books and they’re dated, so you just pull up the date and that devotion is for that day.”
This beautiful part about questioning faith, and if that’s even something she does:
“Not my faith, but I have been in a place where I felt like maybe I had disappointed god so much that we weren’t as close. Actually, that happened to me while I was making Anti. That was a really hard time, but, thank god, I got through it.”
Read the full Rihanna Interview magazine story over on their site.
