Rihanna’s reps deny asking Shaggy to audition for her upcoming album

Jamaican Reggae singer Shaggy claims Rihanna's team asked him to be a part of her next project, but they say no such request ever happened and want him to clarify

Blue Telusma

Jan 15, 2020

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Last week, reggae veteran Shaggy claimed that he was asked to be on Rihanna’s upcoming album, but turned the opportunity down. Now Riri’s team is coming forward to saying it was all a lie.

“They approached me for the Rihanna project, yeah,” Shaggy told British tabloid the Daily Star, explaining why he would be absent from Rihanna’s long awaited “R9” project. “There’s a lot of great people involved, but, for me, I didn’t need to audition to be on the record. I’ll leave that to younger guys. But from what I hear it should be good.”

The news came as a disappointment to fans who since the “Umbrella” singer confirmed the new album would be reggae-inspired, automatically assumed that Jamaican-born Shaggy would be a shoe-in for a collaboration.

But now Rihanna’s representative is coming forward to push back, saying Shaggy must have gotten his wires crossed because no request for him to audition was ever made by them. In fact, the rep is denying they reached out to the reggae artist at all.

“After Rihanna had already gathered all the material for the album, Shaggy contacted her to ask her to be part of the album,” representative reportedly told the Jamaica Irie FM morning show, according to entertainment website theJasmineBRAND. “However, she invited him to send some materials to see if it fit the flow of the album,” the statement noted. “In no way was she asking for an audition.”

The statement also requested that Shaggy himself clarify what took place to end any ensuing confusion about what actually transpired.

“We hope Shaggy comes out and lets fans know the true truth because we all know that you can’t trust the media in general and especially the entertainment media. They will twist someone’s stories to get the most viewers,” it noted. “Rihanna loves the people of Jamaica, loves Reggae fans and loves Reggae music since her career has proven and nothing can change that.”