Rihanna for Vogue US March 2014

Photographed by David Sims 

On fashion being 'painful': “It’s not about pain. It’s about the commitment. I say to myself, ‘I want to look like this,’ and worry about the pain later. I’ve had nights I had to tiptoe home and the balls of my feet wouldn’t even allow me to stand.”

On not intentionally being a rebel: “I don’t go out of my way to be a rebel or to have that perception. But a lot of the decisions I make, a lot of the direction I want to move, is against the grain, or against society’s tight lane, and I’m aware of that sometimes. It might not be fitting with the norm, but that’s OK for me.”

On her love for Instagram: “Instagram is my way of communicating to the world. When I’m on tour, I keep fans in the loop. I don’t really think about it too much. Literally, I can be sitting in a car and be bored, so I do a selfie just because I’m bored. Or if my dog is running around in circles and I think that’s funny, I put it on Instagram.”