“I Hate When People Say This To Me But…”: Ariana Grande Also Needs Rihanna To Release An Album

While Rihanna will release her long-teased ninth album when it’s ready, fans are beyond tired of waiting — including, as it turns out, Ariana Grande.

Rihanna has been hounded by fans about #R9 since 2018 or so. The singer has a track record of releasing album after album — from 2005 to 2012, she released seven albums, and even in the four years between Unapologetic and the phenomenal ANTi, she was everywhere thanks to huge guest features and standalone singles.

These largely dried up in 2018, and as Rihanna began to release makeup, lingerie and everything but music, it became something of a meme.

As fans acted up last year, she joked on Instagram that she was “refusing to release it”, but thankfully told British Vogue she was “very aggressively working on music” back in March.

And we even got something, too: in March, she featured on PARTYNEXTDOOR’s ‘Believe It’.

Still, Ariana Grande is struggling. While promoting her new single with Justin Bieber ‘Stuck With U’ on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music show, she said she needed Rihanna to release the album.

“I’m really glad that she’s putting in so much effort. It means a lot,” she said (via Vulture). “I listened to ANTI every day. I think it’s time. I need it. You know what I mean? Sorry. She’s going to hate me for saying that, but I want it so bad. I get it. I appreciate it.”

“Can you just post it and then just leave and then go back to work?”, she pleaded. “I’m buying the undies. I’m buying the makeup. I’m streaming ANTI. I’m streaming Unapologetic. I’m streaming Loud. Every day, I really am.”

“I’m so angry because I hate when people say this to me, but now that I’m saying it to her, it’s fine,” she joked.

The calls to ‘come save pop mom’ sound a little different when they’re coming from another pop-megastar. But all good things come to those who wait — no matter how impatiently. In the meantime, there’s ‘Believe It’: listen below.