Fact-check: Rihanna’s widely circulated ‘I’m an Igbo woman’ quote is false

News about Barbadian musician and entrepreneur, Rihanna, being of Igbo origin surfaced on major news portals and mostly on Nigerian blogs over the past week.

Per the report, the Forbes billionaire, had made comments to the effect that her mother had made the disclosure of her Igbo roots to her.

But Pulse Nigeria have run a fact check / verification of the said quote and have since rated it UNTRUE.

History of the quote:

Pulse Nigeria noted that web and social media searches for the quote dated back to around Saturday, August 7, 2021.

It turned out that it took the Daily Times Nigeria to bring the quote into the mainstream after amplifying it through their verified Facebook page.

In the post, they wrote: “Rihanna “My mum told me that I am originally an Igbo woman. Igbo is a tribe in Africa,” the post was accompanied by a photo of the singer.

At the time of filing this report, the post had been shared over two thousand times.

With the Daily Times’ false lead, a number of portals also run the story on their pages and sites. Among others, the The Nation also published the post. Daily Post also run with before subsequently deleting.

Verification

The Nation Newspapers quoted Forbes as source of Rihanna’s comment. Forbes had only recently confirmed Rihanna’s status as a billionaire as a result successes recorded in her consmetics business.

Pulse Nigeria’s check on Forbes’ Instagram page revealed two Rihanna-related posts had no such quotes.

They subsequently run an inventory on quotes attributed to Rihanna in recent interviews and found no evidence to back the Igbo-origin story.

Conclusion

“After all checks, Pulse can confirm that this quote is fake. Rihanna has no known link to the Igbo tribe,” the Pulse report concluded.