COVER WARS:RIHANNA AND CHRIS BROWN

Rihanna on her hair:
“I kept telling my managers, I’m cutting my hair. I’m cutting my hair. And they’re like, ‘How short? Not too short. Cut it how short?’ And I’m like, ‘Up to here,’ ” Rihanna says, raising her hand up to her ear. “They never believed me. So when it was time to do the album cover [for Good Girl], the night before I cut it, I dyed it black. We went straight to the photo shoot, and no one at the record label knew what I looked like. When we sent the pictures over, they saw the hair and they all loved it. They loved it.”

On the success of “Umbrella:”
“That song is very, very magical,” says the singer, nodding her heart-shape face. “Because even when I travel, I can’t believe the kind of people that know that record. Their age, their nationality, they don’t speak English, but they all know that song.”

On her formerly alcoholic father:
“That was way, way, way back,” she says, shaking her head and staring at her dish of pasta. “We’re friends now. Now my dad is like the coolest person on the planet. 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.”

On singing in front of Jay-Z for the first time:
“I remember staring into everybody’s eyes in the room while I was singing, and at that point, I was fearless,” she says about the audition. “But the minute I stopped singing, I was like, Oh my God, Jay-Z is sitting right in front of me.”

On the rumor about a relationship with Jay-Z:
“Well, it’s crazy that you ask me that. People know that it’s not true,” she says, straightening up. “I think it’s kinda a cliché question, and people know it’s not true, so I don’t even know why it’s still addressed to this day. I get asked about it all the time and I’m like, You’re asking, but you know the answer. I don’t even like to address it anymore.”

On Chris Brown:
“We’ve always been friends, but we’re very close now.”

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