In his memoir, “Sing To Me: My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching For Who’s Next,” L.A. Reid revealed details about the horrible time in his former artist, Rihanna’s life, after she and Chris Brown went through their domestic dispute in 2009. He talked about how he and Rihanna had formed a close relationship and how she appeared at his home to duck the media and try to put the pieces of her career and personal life back together again.
Here is what L.A. detailed about he and Rihanna’s relationship and the crazy aftermath that followed in an excerpt from his book:
“Our relationship really blossomed after “Umbrella.” Rihanna started coming to my office and we would discuss her follow-up…
I was sitting around my new house in the Hamptons with a couple of my A&R people, smoking some weed and listening to the new Rihanna album in the final stages. When we heard the song “Good Girl Gone Bad,” I knew I had found the title for her album. I had no idea how ironic that would become…
She was set to perform at the Grammys in February 2009. The producer of the show reached me in my suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel the day before the Grammys. Rihanna had not showed for the rehearsal, he told me. The next phone call came from a publicist who worked for us. “Rihanna just had a car accident,” she said. “That’s all I can tell you right now, but she’s in the hospital.”
Chris Brown and Rihanna
As it turned out it wasn’t a car accident, it was her incident with Chris Brown. I never knew much more about what happened than the public did. The details were kept from me. I saw the photos of her battered face the same time everybody else did. I managed to get through to Rihanna at the hospital, but it was a brief conversation. I was able to voice some concern, which I hoped was comforting, but I felt helpless. She was in bad shape and embarrassed, and didn’t want any visitors. All this was happening in her life at the point where she was moving beyond simply being a pop star with some hits into a lady the world cared about. It was tragic.
L.A. said he finally got a call from Rihanna and this is what happened next:
Several weeks later, her manager called to say Rihanna was coming to New York and wanted to see me, which somewhat surprised me. The fact that she was making my house her first stop in New York showed me that apparently our relationship was stronger than I had realized. It wasn’t until then that I saw just how close we’d become.
She flew into town on a private jet, but the paparazzi still found her. She came straight to my apartment and they swarmed outside my building. I didn’t ask her too much about what happened. We talked mostly about what her next career step would be. I ordered some Caribbean food and we listened to music. I played her a couple of demos, but there wasn’t a lot of talk — most of our communication was telepathic. My only advice to her was to turn to music — it sounded cliché but that was what had gotten me through dark times. She stayed for hours. She already had her own A&R team — which I wasn’t part of, although I was the head of the company. We decided to start working together more.
She had stayed at my house so long, I was late for a meeting with Bon Jovi at a private club up the street. I delicately extricated myself and told her to feel free to stay at my house after I left. Later, Erica told me she stayed another couple of hours.
Sometimes an artist needs help making art, sometimes an artist needs help making a hit, and sometimes an artist just needs help.”
L.A. Reid couldn’t have ended it on a more precise note- just like we always say, here at ILoveOldSchoolMusic: entertainers may oftentimes appear larger than life, but the reality is that they are not without flaws, they’re simply perfectly flawed human beings who sometimes need help, just like the rest of us. It’s a beautiful thing that L.A. was able to be the support system that Rihanna needed at that time. Both she and Chris were very young adults then and hopefully they’ve been able to grow and learn from that terrible incident.
