Rihanna and A$AP Rocky attend the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 10, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California.
Christopher Polk/NBC/Getty Images

CNN — 

Rihanna is opening up about her romance with the father of her two sons, A$AP Rocky.

In a new cover story for Interview magazine, the music superstar and Fenty founder said their romantic relationship began as a friendship after they collaborated on a remix of her 2011 single “Cockiness (Love It).”

It was during a performance of that song at the MTV Video Music Awards that the rapper grabbed Rihanna’s backside for all the world to see, and she said her team “was worried that I wanted to have his head on a f—ing mantle.”

Instead, she went on to costar in his “Fashion Killa” music video and the pair became buddies.

“We saw fashion the same. We saw creative the same,” she told Interview this week. “We ended up in the same circles a lot. And past that, when we grew up, we ended up supporting each other’s brands and products and creative all the time.”

“We’ve known each other for a long time. I’ve seen him in relationships. He’s seen me in relationships,” Rihanna told the publication. “We’ve seen each other outside of relationships. We knew what we’re capable of, and the trouble that we could bring to each other’s lives. We can make or break each other’s hearts. And so, we started dating with a lot of caution.”

And then a worldwide pandemic hit.

“COVID sped up our relationship, which I felt like God knew we needed because we were going to start a family,” she said. “And had it not been for COVID, we would’ve taken a lot more time to get comfortable with each other, to even know that we were ready.”

The singer and fashion mogul said she definitely would like to further grow their family, “as many as God wants me to have.”

“I would try for my girl,” Rihanna added. “But of course if it’s another boy, it’s another boy.”