Rihanna Explains the Thing She 'Couldn't Dare Do'

It relates to the Super Bowl
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 10, 2019 6:33 AM CDT
Rihanna: I Turned Down Super Bowl for Kaepernick
Rihanna attends the 5th annual Diamond Ball benefit gala at Cipriani Wall Street in New York on Sept. 12, 2019.   (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Maroon 5 rocked the stage at Super Bowl LIII, but only after other performers refused the gig with Colin Kaepernick in mind. Rihanna was one of them and, months later, she has no regrets. "I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people," says the Fenty founder and Vogue's November cover girl, who teases an upcoming "reggae-infused album." Kaepernick, who hasn't played an NFL game since 2016, has said he was blacklisted by the league for kneeling during the national anthem in protest against police brutality and injustices against minorities. "I just couldn't be a sellout. I couldn't be an enabler," says Rihanna. "There's things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way."

Speaking of people of color, the first black woman to lead a major luxury fashion house says she feels almost "sick to my stomach" when she thinks about young immigrants living in the US. She describes blatant racism and has some biting words for President Trump. But "I feel like the darkness has actually forced people to find this light within them where they want to do better," the 31-year-old says. "It pushes you to want to be the light in the world." Rihanna might just be a light for Kaepernick as the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has retweeted several of her comments from the article, per TMZ. (His girlfriend recently criticized Jay-Z over his company's partnership with the NFL.)

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