Rihanna's relationship with A$AP Rocky started off well…rocky.
As the cover star for Vogue's May issue, the "What's My Name?" singer, 34, shared how the rapper—who she's currently expecting her first child with—was initially in her "friend zone."
"People don't get out of the friend zone very easily with me," she told the publication in a cover story interview published April 12. "And I certainly took a while to get over how much I know him and how much he knows me, because we also know how much trouble we can land each other in."
Rihanna's guard was up with A$AP, 33, especially after he grabbed her butt during their 2012 MTV VMAs performance of "Cockiness."
"He grabbed my ass on stage. That was not part of the rehearsal!" she recalled to Vogue. "I was like, ‘What are you doing!?'" Rihanna's team was preparing for her to be upset over the impromptu move, however, she surprisingly let it go.
"My manager was like, ‘Oh, God, she must like this guy a little bit,'" the Fenty Beauty founder added. "She never lets this s--t slide."
Things between Rihanna and the Harlem rapper became more serious in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the world. The couple took a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York on a tour bus and would stop at random places so Rihanna could grill food and A$AP could tie-dye T-shirts.
"He became my family in that time," she told Vogue, adding, "I cooked our food on this little janky grill I bought from Walmart. I still have it, too. It works like nobody's business. I love the simple things but also the grand adventures. There's no pretentious my-brand-your-brand bullshit, it's just us living. I just feel like I can do any part of life by his side."
As the holidays approached, Rihanna was ready for A$AP to meet her family in Barbados. Though her mother, Monica Braithwaite, is usually a tough person to impress, the Anti singer said she embraced her boyfriend immediately.
"My mother has a really good read on people. She observes first and then she'll move slowly. I guess I'm like that too," she told Vogue. "There are some guys that I've dated that she won't even look at to this day. But she was charmed by him from the jump."
The rest is history. Rihanna and A$AP are now expecting their first child together, however, the singer said it wasn't necessarily planned.
"I don't know when I ovulate or any of that type of s--t," she shared with the publication. "We just had fun. And then it was just there on the test. I didn't waste any time. I called him inside and showed him. Then I was in the doctor's office the next morning and our journey began."