Rihanna has revealed that she’s stepping into 2025 celebrating one year of abstinence from alcohol.
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To usher in the new year, Rihanna shared a post on Instagram that depicted her at a tame house (or hotel) party surrounded by her friends. Donning a grey bathrobe, the ‘This Is What You Came For’ singer rang in 2025 by watching a live-stream of the ball drop in Time’s Square on her mobile phone.
After counting down, Rihanna proudly declared to her followers on social media: “Y’all I didn’t drink all year. I didn’t drink all year.” She wrote in the post’s caption: “New Year, New Me.”
It isn’t immediately clear if the year-long abstinence from alcohol was a short-term decision, or if she will be extending her break from drinking for a longer period of time. She has also not publicly shared her reasons from quitting alcohol.
2024 was a quiet year for Rihanna, music-wise. The singer has yet to release the long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s ‘Anti’. Following the New Year post, fans began to comment on her social media update, asking if 2025 will be the year she finally drops a new album.
One comment read, “Does this version drop music?”, while another wrote: “new year new me? SO THAT’S NEW MUSIC RIGHT?”.
In November, Rihanna addressed her future in music while attending a Fenty launch party in her hometown of Barbados: “Music was the thing that got the attention, but God had other plans for me. And I was able to create in ways that were very sincere and genuine, or organic and authentic to the things that I love.”
Referring to Barbados, she said: “It doesn’t even feel like a job, but when you bring it home” before the crowd erupted into cheers.
The clip has added fuel to the ongoing fan discourse on whether Rihanna – whose last album was 2016’s ‘Anti’ – is indeed done with music. For the past few years, Rihanna has gone full businesswoman mode with Fenty Beauty, and, save for a Super Bowl performance in 2023, has mainly shied away from making and performing music.
The wait for a new album has been simmering all this time, and Rihanna knows it. In July, Rihanna sent a DM to GloRilla asking about new music: “I know dis wild hypocritical, but when the album drop?”.
In April, the star said she had material she felt she “could make hits out of”. Additionally, she told Extra that she felt the album would represent “the evolution” of her sound.
