While Rihanna wasn't present at the 2022 Met Gala, New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art still paid tribute to the Barbadian singer by partnering with Vogue to create a marble statue in her honor. The piece was inspired by her likeness on a recent magazine cover for Vogue.
"The statue of 'Eirene (The Personification of Peace)' is usually the highest-profile marble goddess @themetmuseum Greco-Roman galleries. But now we’ve got @badgalriri, straight off this month’s Vogue cover," the magazine captioned a video of the statue on Instagram.
"Shut down the met in marble! what’s more gilded than that?" Rihanna wrote on Instagram, sharing Vogue's video. "Lol! Thank you @metmuseum and @voguemagazine for this historic tribute! y’all bad for this one!"
Rihanna's absence from the Gala can likely be attributed to her being in the third trimester of her pregnancy, when it is advised not to travel. She is currently expecting her first child with boyfriend A$AP Rocky. The two announced that they were dating in early 2021.
“Balance is one of my biggest challenges and always has been. And now there’s another human being coming into play, it changes what that means again," Rihanna told Vogue in the cover story. "Still, I have businesses that aren’t going to run themselves. My mom handled the three of us with not even close to the amount of resources that I have, so I can absolutely do it.”
Check out Rihanna's statue at The Met below.