The best story about Rihanna’s and A$AP Rocky’s impossibly-enchanting baby boy being on the cover of British Vogue is how the parents responded to a split second flicker of a camera lens in the distance on the day of the March 2023 issue photo shoot.

The sun was beginning to set on a private stretch of beach in Malibu. The pending moment was a true coming out party, as baby prepared for his global debut. His charming and infectious smile was ready to be beamed out over countless websites and IG shares — on strict terms set by his mama and papa.

According to writer Giles Hattersley, assistants and chiefs alike, all fell over themselves to get one more smile from baby, branding his priceless innocence and joyful images into their own individual brains — each hippocampus, neo-cortex and amygdala now in overdrive to store the days’ events with an American prince.

Photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin [IG] were ready to shoot the cover. British Vogue EIC Edward Enninful found the setup absolutely perfect. All systems were go.

Stalk and Snatch the Baby Trophy

And then it came . . . the awareness of a pap far off in the distance, stalking the family, ready to claim his prey — pictures of this precious child — for a mountains of cash sale to the highest international media bidder.

“I just went straight into protective mode,” remembers Rihanna. “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.” But they knew the clock was ticking. “As we were speaking, we knew they were making calls and deals.”

No way was their baby son being sold to the highest bidder. In true boss-lady, on-the-spot decision-making, Rihanna sent a couple of cute, candid snaps from her camera roll to a friendly blogger for posting. Nice. Still, the couple needed to do something epic.

So she joined TikTok — in that moment of monumental irritation, Rihanna joined TikTok — posting an adorable video of her son gurgling away in his car seat, under the protection of mama bear and papa bear.

As mama bear racked up some 20 million views on her new TikTok account, the pap-racket price for the FIRST images of Rihanna and Rocky’s baby cratered.

Confident that savouring a moment of sweet revenge was a goddess-worthy act under the circumstances, the cover shoot proceeded.

A Great Mane of Hair and Billions to Boot

If Rihanna wants to look like a lioness, it’s her every right.

I thought of RiRi yesterday, while noting more than one respectable fashion writer break the shocking-to-everyone-but-me news [this is TRUE!] that Pharrell Williams was replacing Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton.

AOC said all along that my man Pharrell Williams was going to LV Mens, and I never faltered in that belief. Obviously, most fashion writers don’t operate on my LVMH checklist. It’s as clear as day, imo.

The “bust” investment that LVMH made in Rihanna’s Fenty clothing line somehow wove its way into the narratives about LVMH’s love of the entertainment crowd yesterday. I trust that in our post George Floyd world, everyone can read the code.

Now AOC always covers the entire story as much as humanly possible, so we agree that LVMH didn’t go forward with Fenty clothing. BUT, they own half of Fenty Corp, whose beauty and skincare brands are now valued at a “staggering” $2.8 billion shared almost equally between LVMH and Rihanna.

As we’ve written about multiple times — and I KNOW these writers are equally-informed on the topic — LVMH’s private equity firm L Catterton is the lead investor in Rihanna’s lingerie line Savage X Fenty. A year ago, the lingerie business was valued at $1 billion.

So LVMH is doing just fine, thank you, with their investments in Black talent and brainpower. In the last four years at Louis Vuitton, revenue doubled from $10 billion to $20 billion. Yes, in the middle of COVID.

The British Vogue narrative does speak to the investments, without calling out some of the snide reporting I’ve been reading this week. Sorry, but I can’t let that crap stand.

So back to this fantastic story about Rihanna and Rocky A$AP’s expanding family, now that the entire world knows baby will become a little big brother before he knows it. ~ Anne

PS: There are no other significant Rocky A$AP updates. If there were, I would write a separate post and not note it here. January 13 came and went.