With a net worth of $600 million, Rihanna is the world’s richest female musician. That means that she could certainly afford a private jet, right?
Rihanna flies exclusively on private jets, but does not own one herself. In 2012, as part of a publicity stunt, Rihanna took off with approximately 250 fans and press associates on a Boeing 777 jet. The stunt was to promote her upcoming album Unapologetic. Many attendees from the press have stated the entire event was a disaster.
You can read more below about Rihanna’s exclusive use of private jets and the chaotic event of her 777 Tour.
Rihanna’s Exclusive Use of Private Jets
With the level of fame that Riri has garnered, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the Diamonds singer flies exclusively on private jets. The convenience that flying in a private jet offers is definitely something that Rihanna would want to take advantage.
When she is touring, there are times when she needs to be in a different city every night. She has to have all of her equipment and personnel with her when she’s on tour too. Flying private makes more sense. If she weren’t flying private then she would have to rely on the schedule of a commercial airline.
On top of touring, Rihanna is also flying between Barbados, Los Angeles, and London. She visits her family in Barbados quite frequently. Historically, she has done most of her recording in Los Angeles. Finally, she now has a place in London so that she can be more involved in her new company Fenty Beauty. All good reasons to fly private.
Rihanna’s 777 Private Jet Tour
As stated above, Rihanna invited a chunk of fans from the Rihanna Navy and press people to fly on a private jet. The party plane flew with her on board to seven countries over seven days for seven of her concerts. The whole idea behind the private jet tour was to promote her new album Unapologetic. To say the least, this was the first time that any artist had pulled a promotional stunt like this. One of the questions floating around was: would it work?
The verdict on whether this venture was a success or not was this: it failed miserably, at least in the presses eyes. What seemed like a fantastic idea initially, turned out to be a logistical disaster. In a 2017 Mashable article, journalist Martha Tesema followed up with reporters who were on the tour. Emily Zemler, a reporter for MySPace, recalled “You kind of just got immediately that nothing had really been planned out. There wasn’t a lot of logistics that had been put into it and there wasn’t much of a system in place and that just got progressively worse.”
777 Turns Into an Utter Disaster
Further to what was said above, the same Mashable article goes on with journalists recollections of the poor treatment of the Rihanna Navy aboard the airship. Another journalist, Jason Newman, said “But I felt super bad for the Navy because she went back there once and then none of them ever saw her again. You can say f*** off to journalists, that’s fine, but these are your fans out here, just give a head nod or something.”
It came to light that in Stockholm, luggage from the plane was strewn across the runway and everyone on board the plane had to scramble trying to find their belongings in the dark. The star’s excessive partying also led to multiple flight delays. One delay was caused by Riri deciding to go on a lingerie shopping spree in Paris while the entire tour waited for her on the private jet.
A film crew was hired to make a documentary about the 777 Tour by Rihanna and you can watch the whole thing by following the below YouTube link.
Despite the whole mess up of the 777 tour, Rihanna has historically been really good to her fans. While the singer doesn’t own her own private jet, it’s quite possible that she will purchase one of her own in the future.