Rihanna Finally Admitted That She Misses Performing

Rihanna is officially back — or at least she’s taken the first step towards her music comeback. The Fenty Beauty maven made a special guest appearance during Jay-Z’s Extra Innings concert at New York’s Yankee Stadium, surprising fans with her first public live performance in over three years.

RiRi took the stage in the wee hours of July 13, after the show was delayed past midnight due to security concerns. Despite the late start time, she didn’t miss a beat. She joined Jay-Z to perform their 2009 collaboration “Run This Town,” bellowing the anthemic chorus along with the rapturous crowd, as the rapper told her, “Talk to 'em!”

Afterward, Rihanna addressed the audience directly, acknowledging how long she’s been away from the stage. “Y’all know I’m rusty, right?” she said. “It’s been a while. Y’all with me right now?” She then gave fans an extra treat from her catalog, performing her 2015 hit “Bitch Better Have My Money” as Jay-Z watched on like a proud uncle.

Before making her exit, RiRi admitted that she missed the music world, giving fans a glimmer of hope that her return to the stage won’t be short-lived. “I missed this sh*t, y’all!” she said. “New York, I love you guys!” Perhaps her long-awaited ninth album is on the way, after all.

Rihanna was far from the only surprise that Jay-Z had in store. For the final show of his three-night stand at Yankee Stadium, celebrating the anniversaries of his 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt and his smash 2001 album The Blueprint, he assembled a Met Gala-worthy lineup of guests, including Usher, Teyana Taylor, Pharrell Williams, Clipse, and, of course, his wife, Beyoncé.

The set marked Rihanna’s first performance in front of fans since she headlined the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2023, while she was pregnant with her son Riot. Over a year later, she played a private concert in India for the wedding festivities of billionaire heir Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, who reportedly paid the singer over $6 million.

Despite performing on occasion, Rihanna hasn’t released an album in over a decade, with her last release being 2016’s Grammy-nominated Anti. However, her last update on new music was positive, telling Harper’s Bazaar in February 2025 that she was finally making progress. “I just cracked the code on what I really want to do for my next body of work,” she said. “I am actually feeling really good about this. I know I kept saying this over the years.”