A (Brief) History of Rihanna's Most Infamous Moments

Image via Complex Original

Date: May 8, 2009
What Happened?: An individual who went by the alias "Young Turk" leaked nude photos of Rihanna online. RiRi, being the sassy girl she is, responded a few months later explaining, "They were for my boyfriend at the time. If you don't send your boyfriend naked pictures, then I feel bad for him."—Edwin Ortiz

Date: February 26, 2011
What Happened?: The ongoing feud between Ciara and Rihanna started back in 2011 when CiCi hopped on E!'s Fashion Police with Joan Rivers. "I ran into [Rihanna] recently at a party. She wasn't the nicest," Ciara told Rivers. "It's crazy, because I've always loved and respected what she's done in fashion. It wasn't the most pleasant run-in." It turned into a back and forth with Rihanna insinuating she should have tipped Ciara.—Lauren Nostro

Date: January 19, 2012
What Happened?: Earlier this year, Rihanna spent her vacation in Hawaii smoking blunts and taking photos of herself lounging, on a treadmill, in a metallic bikini—the list goes on. Thankfully, she was thoughtful enough to share them on her Twitter. She accompanied this one of her photographing her friend's assets with the hashtag #CAKE.—Lauren Nostro

Date: February 20, 2012
What Happened?: Reports surfaced via Miss Info that Rihanna was spotted with Chris Brown at her birthday party. Shortly afterwards the two reunited... on her "Birthday Cake" remix. Brown's appearance on the track—and her appearance on his "Turn Up the Music" remix—sparked media outrage and a whole lot of #clapbacks from Ri on Twitter.

She spoke to Ryan Seacrest about the brouhaha: "I thought about rappers, and I've done that so many times, and the hottest R&B artist out right now is Chris Brown. So I wanted him on the track, and then in turn he was like 'Why don't you do the remix to my track?' and it was a trade-off. We did two records. One for my fans. One for his fans, and that way our fans can come together. There shouldn't be a divide. You know? It's music, and it's innocent."—Lauren Nostro

Date: April 15, 2012
What Happened?: This is how extremely rich 24-year-olds get high.—Ernest Baker

Date: May 2, 2012
What Happened?: Rihanna made it back to the strip club, this time to Perfections in Woodside, Queens. She tweeted that '$tripper$' are the best stress relief, followied by photos of her throwing money at two dancers on stage, and another of her getting grinded on-all while counting her cash and holding a drink in her mouth.

Ri looked good in her Raiders shirt and denim booty shorts alongside the dancers, and she was feeling good too. "Even Daddy would be proud," Rihanna tweeted. But the next day was a different story: "Woke up repenting! Feelin like a sinner."—Lauren Nostro

Date: June 14, 2012
What Happened?: It's not like nobody saw this coming. Chris Brown and Drake have quietly been at odds for a while now-their not-so-secret tension marked by a series of social media jabs. But everything came to a head in the early hours of Thursday morning when Breezy and Drizzy ended up in the same Manhattan nightclub surrounded by bottles, women, and both artists' respective entourages.—Brad Wete

Date: November 14-21, 2012
What Happened?: Rihanna's 777 Tour: A seven-day excursion with seven shows in seven days in seven countries, beginning on November 14th, and ending on the 21st. One of the more amibitious publicity stunts in recent pop music history, to be sure. Rihanna, along with her entourage and publicity team, would board a Delta Boeing 777 twinjet along a group of die-hard fans (#RihannaNavy). There also happened to be 150 journalists, representing 82 countries. The guests would arrive on the morning of Wednesday, November 14th at LAX, and board the plane.

And yet: Theory and execution, especially where pop stars are concerned, can deviate wildly from one another. In less than a week, the journalists would be emotionally distressed wrecks, producing a scene that seemingly resembled less Almost Famous as it did Argo.

Only those on the plane will ever truly understand, and they're no doubt tired of talking about it. And they did, in fact, talk about it. So much, in fact, that they've provided the world a comprehensive composite of the series of events that culminated with the plane landing in Newark, New Jersey this morning, and streaming out a number of journalists looking as though they'd returned from that flight in The Langoliers.—Lauren Nostro

Date: August 29, 2013
What Happened?: Ever since Chris Brown started dating aspiring model Karrueche Tran, a quiet yet petty back and forth has gone on between Tran and Chris' ex, Rihanna. Rih Rih will often enable her cousins and friends to take not-so-subtle digs at Karrueche. Chris' boo is not innocent, though. Karreueche gets her digs in, too. If you ever miss high school, just think about Chris Brown's love triangle.—Michael Arceneaux

Date: September 22, 2013
What Happened?: Rihanna posted this selfie of herself with a slow loris on Instagram with the caption, "Look who was talkin dirty to me! #Thailand#nightlife." Rihanna was in Thailand for a brief respite, and enjoyed herself by posing on the beach and amongst various species of wildlife.

While the picture Rihanna took with the slow loris seemed innocuous enough, it inadvertantly led to the arrest of two young men.

Apparently, the slow loris is a protected species, and so authorities used the picture to track down the individuals who allowed Rihanna to pose with one. One of the two men is 16. They both face charges of possession of protected animals, which could result in a four year prison sentence and a fine of $1,300. Authorities also confiscated two lorises from the men.

Rhianna has not commented on this issue, and it does not appear that she will get in trouble for posing with the loris. Following her trip to Thailand, she headed off to Singapore, where she performed Sunday.—Dharmic X

Date: October 21, 2013
What Happened?: As part of her "Diamonds" world tour, Rihanna performed in Abu Dhabi, and although it might be expected that there were some objections to her sexy dance moves, she was acting scandalous before she even hit the stage. According, to the Mirror, RiRi was asked to leave the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque after posing for a photo shoot that didn't respect the "sanctity" of the place of worship.

According to a statement issued by the Grand Mosque, "The Centre strives to ensure that visitors enter the mosque in a decent fashion, and refrain from behaving in any way that is inconsistent with the sanctity of this religious place." Rihanna's photos were considered disrespectful, and she was asked to leave.

In the photo shoot, taken by photographer Gomillion Leupold, Rihanna complies with the Grand Mosque's clothing rules, covering her hair and skin in an all black outfit. While her dance moves later that night may have crossed a line—and even while performing, she made an effort to cover up—this shoot isn't overtly sexy (besides the fact that this is Rihanna, after all). While a few of her poses or expressions may be considered too scandalous, compared to most of her outfits, this seems to be RiRi at her most tame. More questionable is the fact that her outfit alludes to a Burka, but even that is up for debate.—Leigh Silver

Date: April 29, 2014
What Happened?: While the rest of the Internet is loving Rihanna's new cover on the French magazine Lui, Instagram wasn't a fan.

According to TMZ, Instagram told Rihanna to delete her recent nude photos, and not post any others, or her account would be deleted. The pictures of her Lui cover, which you can see here (NSFW), were deleted within an hour of her posting. She reportedly received an email from Instagram with the warning, so after taking them down, she posted them on Twitter instead.—J. Duaine Hahn