Rihanna, A$AP Rocky and their son grace the cover of the magazine's March issue.
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky's baby boy hasn't even had his first birthday yet, but he's already gracing major magazine covers! The family of three -- soon to be four -- appear on the front of British Vogue's March issue, in which the 35-year-old singer reflects on her journey to motherhood and life with her partner.
The singer describes her first months as a mother as "legendary," adding, "It's everything. You really don't remember life before, that's the craziest thing ever."
"You literally try to remember it - and there are photos of my life before - but the feeling, the desires, the things that you enjoy, everything, you just don't identify with it because you don't even allow yourself mentally to get that far, because..." she says. "Because it doesn't matter."
"Essentially, from one person I became two. You walk into the hospital as a couple and leave as a family of three. It's nuts," the singer says, reflecting on giving birth. "And oh, my gosh, those first days are insane. You don't sleep. At all. Not even if you wanted to. We came home, cold turkey, had no one. It was just us as parents and our baby. Man, you're a zombie for the most part. You're just going through the motions and even then you're so paranoid. Because you're like: they trusted us to come home with this baby? No doctors, no nurses, we're just... going home?"
The singer notes that becoming parents "changed a lot" for her and her beau. Saying they're "best friends with a baby," she notes that they've "always" had the need to be on the same page in their relationship.
"Everything changes when you have a baby but I wouldn't say it's done anything but made us closer," she adds, reflecting on Rocky's relationship with their son. "I'm just sitting on the sidelines when they're together. I'm literally the girl trying to get into the boys club, waiting for my turn. He is obsessed with his father... Their connection is undeniable."
And amid the joyful upheaval that came with a new baby, the NFL came asking for her to headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show. Rihanna previously refused the NFL's invitation to perform in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick's stance against the racial injustice and police brutality he saw the national anthem, and the American flag, as having come to represent.
"For this Super Bowl, I was approached a few weeks before [the announcement] and I kind of kept putting off my answer," she shares, before explaining why she changed her former stance. "There's still a lot of mending to be done in my eyes but it's powerful to break those doors, and have representation at such a high, high level and a consistent level."
She adds that she believes performing after last year's headliners -- Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige and Kendrick Lamar -- sends a powerful message "representing the urban community, globally. It sends a really strong message."
"Of course, raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life," she says. "You're like, 'What am I leaving my kids to? This is the planet they're gonna be living on?' All of those things really start to hit differently."
Motherhood also motivated her, with Rihanna admitting that she was "geeked on a challenge like that because you know what your body just did. You feel this sense of 'Nothing is impossible.'"
"It was almost like an out-of-body experience," she says. "I have not been on stage in seven years. Seven years! From zero to Super Bowl? That's mental."
See the full feature in the March issue of British Vogue available via digital download and on newsstands on Feb. 21.
It's not the first time fans have seen the face of Rihanna's son. In December, RiRi took to TikTok and posted a 45-second clip of her baby, whose name the parents have not yet revealed. In the video, the baby is sitting in his car seat looking like he's having the time of his life, laughing and making all kinds of cute baby faces.
The "Umbrella" singer and "Fashion Killa" rapper welcomed their first child together back in May. And on Sunday, Rihanna dropped the big news that the couple is already expecting their second child in grand fashion, when she showed off her baby bump during her epic Super Bowl LLVII halftime performance.
A source told ET that Rihanna only shared the news with a "very limited few," and that when the Super Bowl heads asked Rihanna if she would perform at the halftime show, they didn’t know she would be pregnant.
"Rihanna has always done things on her own schedule so she didn’t let her plans for baby number two stop her from committing to doing the show -- she wanted it all!" the source said, adding that "when she was further along and shared the news with a very limited few, everyone was very supportive!"
Everything from choreography and costumes "were being tweaked up until the last minute," the source added.
As for keeping her pregnancy a secret, Super Bowl halftime show producer Jesse Collins told ET that rehearsals had to be done miles away from Los Angeles to keep all the details of RiRi's visually stunning performance under wraps.
"We had to rehearse way out in the sticks of [Los Angeles] and Santa Clarita to keep it all secretive," Collins said. "It was a lot of work. And then, how do you keep the secret that she's pregnant? I mean, that's hard too... Honestly, as soon as it [was] done I'm like, 'Woo, let's get her back down.' That's all I want to do is get her back on the ground... It was a lot of prep, a lot of nerves and [I'm] just really happy to be a part of it."
Watch the video below for more on Rihanna's Super Bowl performance.
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