An onstage duet between music stars Rihanna and Drake has led to speculation that the two are dating.
People magazine on Thursday opined on what it called the chemistry between eight-time Grammy Award-winner Rihanna, 28, and Grammy-winner Drake, 29, while they were performing their hit song “Work” at the Forum in Los Angeles the night before. The magazine said Rihanna brought Drake out on stage and danced provocatively with him, at one point “grabbing his jacket and pulling him closer to her.”
People did not mention the possibility of stage choreography. Rihanna and Drake are regular collaborators who were among the co-writers of “Work,” on which Drake is featured vocalist. The song spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart.
Citing a source, People went on to say Drake and Rihanna have been “secretly dating” for months, and that after the concert the two went together to the West Hollywood lounge The Nice Guy, where they reportedly danced and seemed affectionate.
“I read this story once a week,” Rihanna’s spokeswoman, Amanda Silverman, told Newsday. Drake’s spokeswoman declined to comment.
“We have genuine energy between us,” Drake told Zane Lowe this week on Apple Music’s OVO Sound Radio, according to People’s transcription. “We do great music together . . . I think [our chemistry is] what makes the records better.”
Rihanna, who briefly rekindled a relationship with singer Chris Brown in 2012 following his conviction for assaulting her three years earlier, has long been the subject of relationship rumors. Publicist Jonathan Hay admitted in 2008 he had knowingly spread a false claim that Rihanna, who had just released her song “Pon de Replay” (2005), was having an affair with Jay Z. Neither star was aware of his machinations, he said.
