A$AP Rocky Opens Up About Meeting Rihanna Before Fame — and Feeling “Embarrassed”

A$AP Rocky and Rihanna are one of the most popular celebrity power couples. 

They’ve been together publicly since 2020, and most recently welcomed a daughter — their third child together — in September last year. 

However, what people don’t know is that their first ever meeting, which took place before the rapper made it big, was a lot less glamorous than people think.

It Took Place in NYC

On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Rocky shared the details of their meet cute. 

“We met outside of a nightclub,” he told Fallon. At the time, the rapper wasn't famous, and he, along with the late Virgil Abloh, and long time friend and collaborator Matthew Williams, was trying to get into a club. 

“The bouncers didn’t want to let me in,” he explained. While the crew was going back and forth with the security, Rihanna came out.

“We locked eyes right away," he recalled. "I was just like, in a daze.”  

“I was a little embarrassed that she caught me bickering with the guard and stuff like that,” he said.

Then when Fallon asked if she ended up helping her future partner get into the club, Rocky answered, laughing, “No.”

A$AP Rocky and Rihanna’s History

While their first ever chance meeting was way back when, publicly, they’ve shared stages and music video appearances at least since 2012. 

Rocky accompanied Rihanna on stage at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards for the song "Cockiness (Love It)," in which the rapper put his spin on for a remix version. They showed off their flirty chemistry on stage even back then. 

The rapper then joined the singer on tour in 2013 as an opening act for her North American leg of her Diamonds World Tour. 

Since then, Rihanna made an appearance in Rocky’s music video, and the two even attended red carpet events together throughout the years. In January 2020, after Rihanna split with billionaire Hassan Jame, the duo's relationship was then confirmed in November later that year. 

But maybe it was always in the cards for the pair, at least from Rocky’s mother’s perspective. Even when the pair were friends, the rapper shared with New York TimesPopcast that his mother would ask about Rihanna since back then. 

He said, "My mother used to say s--- like, ‘I know you like this girl that you [are] with right now’ — I ain’t gon’ say no names — ‘but I want you with RiRi.’ It’s like, ‘Ma, why you keep saying that? That girl don’t even want me like that.'"

Fast forward to today, “Mothers know best," he said, adding: "I'm thankful that [Rihanna] was put in my life at that time because any time prior to that I don't think I was ready for something like that. I don't think she was either."