Rihanna tells fans to stop asking about R9 while she's "trying to save the world"

Rihanna has told fans to stop asking her to release her new album while she’s busy “trying to save the world”.

The pop star has been teasing the arrival of the record – dubbed R9 – since 2018 and promised in an Instagram comment last year that it would be released in 2019.

However, the record is still yet to see the light of day. When Rihanna went live on Instagram yesterday (April 10), fans tried to get an answer out of her for when they should expect it. Instead, she told them off for persistently asking about it.

“If one of y’all motherfuckers asks me about the album one more time when I’m trying to save the world, unlike y’all president,” she said. “On sight.”

Rihanna said stop asking her about the album while she’s trying to save the world “unlike your president”. ? pic.twitter.com/1nfPnlSVCp

— THE NEIGHBORHOOD TALK (@TNHTalk) April 10, 2020

Last month, the singer was reported to have given $5 million (£4m) in help to impoverished countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic, along with $700,000 (£562k) in ventilators to her country of Barbados. She has also donated Personal Protective Equipment to the state of New York and given over $2 million (£1.6m) to domestic abuse victims affected by the crisis.

In February, Rihanna admitted that she liked to “antagonise” her fans when it came to the release of her ninth album. “They antagonise me, too!” she explained. “So they get it right back.”

Earlier this year, she did give an update on some of the record’s possible collaborations, saying she was spending Valentine’s Day in the studio with “somebody I’ve been wanting to work with for a long time”. When pushed to reveal who, she answered: “OK, I’ll tell you. It’s Pharrell.”

The star hasn’t released an album since 2016’s ‘ANTI’, focusing instead on her businesses, Fenty Beauty, Savage X Fenty, and her new Fenty Maison fashion brand.