Rihanna Biography

International R&B star Rihanna released her first album in 2005 and is known for such hits as "Umbrella," "Pon de Replay," "SOS" and "Disturbia."

Singer Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael Parish on the Caribbean island of Barbados. She is the eldest of three children born to Monica Fenty, an accountant, and Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor. Rihanna's childhood was marred by her father's struggles with addictions to alcohol and crack cocaine and her parents' marital problems—they divorced when she was 14 years old.

However, since that time, Rihanna's father has managed to conquer his addictions and the pair are now very close. "Now my dad is like the coolest person on the planet," Rihanna says. "He doesn't smother me. He lets me live my life. And he's been like that a lot, even when I was younger. He would watch me making a mistake and he wouldn't stop me. My dad, he lets me make it and then I learn."

Rihanna also struggled with crippling headaches for several years during her childhood, a condition she attempted to hide from her friends and classmates so that they would not think she was abnormal. "I never expressed how I felt," she remembers. "I always kept it in. I would go to school ... you would never know there was something wrong with me."

In 2009, Rihanna again made headlines again, becoming the center of a media firestorm after a domestic violence incident in which her then-boyfriend Chris Brown assaulted her before an awards show. The incident sparked a huge public outpouring of support for Rihanna, and she has since become a spokesperson against domestic violence. "This happened to me," she said in an interview with Diane Sawyer. "It can happen to anyone."

Rihanna was later romantically involved with Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Matt 
Kemp, but the pair have since split ways.