The Daily Mail Continues to Be Creeps By Targeting Rihanna's Baby

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | May 11, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | May 11, 2023 |

Rihanna and A$AP Rocky attract a lot of press attention. The arrival of their first child and the impending birth of their second has led to much media fervour, with Rihanna’s pregnancy style setting a new standard. Yet, overall, the pair have kept their family under tight wrap, avoiding a lot of the typical trappings of celebrity demands when it comes to ‘revealing’ their kids to the world. Sure, we got the Vogue cover story with their adorable son on show, but for the first few months of his life, he was kept out of the spotlight. And they never revealed his name. Well, apparently that was unforgivable to some, and they just had to rectify this egregious error by obtaining the birth certificate of a baby they don’t know.

The Daily Mail, forever finding new lows to sink to, ‘exclusively’ got their hands on a copy of the child’s birth certificate so they could make a big story out of revealing his name. I’m not going to put it here because I still think this is a gross invasion of privacy and a level of creepiness that shocked even me. Guys, he’s a baby. He’s not a politician you need to hold accountable. He’s just a kid whose parents are famous and who notably did not tell the press his name.

Twitter certainly shared around an infant’s birth certificate, but many also took umbrage with the Daily Mail’s bullsh*t.

Posting Rihanna’s child’s birth certificate online is really a bit over the top

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 10, 2023

now why did Daily Mail not only get Rihanna’s baby’s birth certificate but then put it on the internet?? all y’all need to go to jail for that, just absolutely weird and gross.

— Ann-Marie K★ (@luxeblackbarbie) May 11, 2023

I hope Rihanna deals with Daily Mail so severely. Cut them up and take them for everything they’ve got.

— Troublemaker of Zion | WNCel 🏹 (@PreciousGNSD) May 11, 2023

I can’t wait for Rihanna to sue tf out of daily mail for leaking her sons birth certificate.

We’ve seen her drag people for less and they deserve what’s coming.

— harlot quinzel (@ogstefani) May 11, 2023

I don’t know if it’s possible for Rihanna to sue but I hope she does. It wasn’t the Daily Mail’s call to make. They didn’t do this for some declaration of integrity. This happened solely for the clicks. No, let me be more specific. This happened because they wanted to show that they could. This is a d*ck-swinging tactic, a reminder from a right-wing, clout-chasing, bully-heavy publication that nobody is safe from their gaze. Oh, you want to retain a sliver of your privacy for your newborn? Well, screw that, because we can dig through your medical privacy like it’s an issue of our own rag.

Yes, birth certificates are public according to California state law. Birth records are public information, but birth certificates are not considered public records. As the state’s official website notes, ‘In order to obtain a birth certificate, the requesting party is required to provide a notarized, sworn statement declaring that they are authorized to access the record. Persons who attempt to access these records under false pretenses will be charged with perjury.’ So, how did the Mail get this info? This is a common tactic. TMZ is notorious for sending hacks to acquire birth and marriage certificates of celebrities. But this hardly seems to qualify as a sturdy or justifiable use of public data. Again, this is a baby.

Celebrities are noticeably more private in regard to their children’s lives. Laws have changed in regards to paparazzi targeting kids. Major A-Listers no longer feel the need to sell exclusive images of their newborns to magazines like People or release statements via publicists to announce that they’ve pushed a whole human being out into the world. Some of the most famous people on the planet managed to keep their pregnancies out of the public eye for months and didn’t even reveal their kids’ names. They don’t have to. It’s not a commodity they have to shill.

But there’s still a huge market for this stuff in papers like the Daily Mail. People LOVE to judge celebrities, but especially in regard to pregnancy and parenthood. I bet the Mail’s online comments were especially cruel towards Rihanna for not adhering to their notions of ‘proper’ motherhood. For a depressingly large percentage of the populace, literally everything connected to a vaguely famous person is fair game for them to chew up and spit out. It’s gross.

I hope Rihanna and Rocky sue. This crap just isn’t acceptable and shouldn’t be normalized as ‘part of the job’ of being famous.