Rihanna: I see myself as art

There aren’t many women in Hollywood who seem as comfortable in their skin as Rihanna does.

The 24-year-old’s nonchalance toward nudity, partial or otherwise, is well-documented, and she brings the same ease in a cover and photo spread for GQ’s December issue.

Dedicated to their men of the year – Channing Tatum and Ben Affleck among them – the magazine also highlights their “obsession of the year,” Rihanna, clad in nothing but a leather jacket covering her shoulders.

But what’s more stunning than the image is the fact that she had time for the shoot at all, considering that she’s been ramping up to release her seventh studio album in seven years on November 19.

Starting Wednesday, Rihanna will embark on a seven-day tour promoting the record, “Unapologetic,” bouncing from Mexico City (November 14) to Toronto (November 15) to Stockholm (November 16) to Paris (November 17) before coming back to New York City the day after her album’s release.

“Sometimes a person looks at me and sees dollars. They see numbers and they see a product,” the “Diamonds” singer told GQ. “I look at me and see art. If I didn’t like what I was doing, then I would say I was committing slavery.”

But Rihanna is in the driver’s seat of her career and public persona, a position that leads her to want to take the backseat when it comes to romance.

“I like to feel like a woman,” she said of her turn-ons. “I have to be in control in every other aspect of my life, so I feel like in a relationship, like I wanted to be able to take a step back and have somebody else take the lead.”

Being in love, she continued, “makes you go places you probably wouldn’t ever go, had it not been for love. But I think everybody still has their limits.”

cnn