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The Beginning.
    It was released in Germany, Finland, Switzerland and Portugal, but only made the Top 10 in Finland, where it got to No. 8.
    Around this time, Rihanna was still a single lady and went on a date with Transformers’ actor Shia LaBeouf, but they didn’t connect in the right way. Shia explained to Playboy magazine: ‘It never got beyond one date. The spark wasn’t there. We weren’t passionate about each other in that way, so we remain friends.’
    For her third album Rihanna wanted to show the world what the real Rihanna was like. She didn’t want people to tell her how she should look, what she should sing or the kind of person she should be: she wasn’t a 16-year-old girl anymore; she was a women and ready to show off her rebellious side. She didn’t want to be the same-old girl next door.
    When fans bought their own copies of Good Girl Gone Bad , they saw a new side to Rihanna, and she was glad of it. She told Bang Showbiz: ‘[Before Good Girl Gone Bad was released] I had a ridiculous schedule. It was kind of unfair. But I kept going. I was focusing on getting people to respect me as an artist, making my stamp in the industry.
    ‘I wasn’t 100% or even 75% in control of my image or my sound. I said, “If you guys keep this perfect image of me, people will never notice me.” I kind of blended in. It was safe, the blonde, curly hair. It was a formula. I didn’t want to be like all the other artists. I wanted to stand out. And the only way I could do that was by taking charge of my image and sound. And it worked. Good Girl Gone Bad was a big turning point for me.’
    People think that being a world-famous singer must be the best job in the world, but it does have its downsides.Rihanna has had to work very hard, and while growing up, she has missed out on many things that normal teenagers get to do. However, she knew she had to make sacrifices so her dreams could come true, and revealed to GQ magazine: ‘Nothing in life comes easy. Everything comes with a sacrifice. If this is what I love to do most then I have to put up with the s**t, that I don’t love, that comes with it.’
    Ne-Yo contributed to Good Girl Gone Bad , along with Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Tricky Stewart, as well as Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken. Justin Timberlake wrote ‘Rehab’, and he told Entertainment Weekly : ‘She’s a young artist stepping into the adult world. To me, that song (“Rehab”) is the bridge for her to be accepted as an adult in the music industry.’
    Jay-Z, too, could see that Rihanna had changed, commenting: ‘She’s found her voice. That’s the best thing for any label, to have an artist step in and take control of their own career – she’s left the nest.’ He drew comparisons with Janet Jackson’s Control , which was the star’s breakthrough album, back in 1986.
    Jay-Z is Rihanna’s friend as well as her mentor, and because he is famous too, he can offer her good advice about handling fame. He told journalist Margeaux Watson: ‘The biggest advice I can give her is to keep her circle tight, because she can’t control anything else outside of that. She can’t control people’s opinion of her records or what’s being said on the blogs, but if she has the proper friends, she won’t get caught up in the wild-child lifestyle.They will bring her back [down to earth] and be like, “You might wanna pull your skirt down.”’
    As well as changing the type of music she wanted to make, Rihanna also altered the way she looked, and ditched the girly Caribbean style she used to have, instead picking clothes that showed off her womanly figure. She also rebelled by cutting her hair, something she had wanted to do for ages but had never been able to because the people around her liked her to have long hair. Rihanna wanted to express herself with her hair, rather than having the same style as Beyoncé and many of the other female artists who all wore their hair long and straight.
    She worked with