Pop icon and makeup entrepreneur Rihanna has a new title to add to her resume – ambassador to her home country of Barbados.
“Rihanna has a deep love for her country and this is reflected in her philanthropy, especially in the areas of health and education,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said in a statement.
The prime minister hailed Rihanna — who grew up as Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty and was raised in Bridgetown, Barbados — as a music icon with “significant creative acumen and shrewdness in business. Mottley said Rihanna has made significant charitable contributions to the island.
“She also shows her patriotism in the way she gives back to this country and continues to treasure the island as her home,” Mottley said.
Rihanna’s official title is ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, according to the island’s Government Information Service.
Rihanna’s job in the new role – between recording music and promoting her makeup line – will be promoting education, investment, and tourism for Barbados, an island in the Caribbean Sea with 285,000 residents.
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The songstress and creator of the year-old Fenty Beauty makeup line hailed for meeting the needs of women of all colors said in a statement that she could not be more pleased with her appointment. Rihanna maintains residences in Barbados and in Los Angeles.
Rihanna said she is “proud to take on such a prestigious title in my home country.”
“Every Barbadian is going to have to play their role in this current effort, and I’m ready and excited to take on the responsibility,” she said in the statement, posted by CNN. “I look forward to working with Prime Minister Mottley and her team to reimagine Barbados.”
Rihanna was named the cultural ambassador to her country in 2008 to help promote tourism, but her new role gives her more independence to act on the part of her country.
Rihanna, born in the parish of St. Michael, Barbados, got her start by forming a girl group with two of her classmates back home. An American record producer discovered the group but saw Rihanna as the standout. Her wildly successful 2005 hit Pon de Replay put her on the global map.