Rihanna in Abu Dhabi
Back off, Bieber and move over, Miley: Rihanna has finally clawed her way back on top of the bad pop-star behaviour chart and this time she has an entire country mad at her.
As reported by BBC News, the Grammy-winning singer was asked to leave a mosque complex in Abu Dhabi over the weekend after posing outside the building for an unauthorized photo shoot.
Following her live concert in the United Arab Emirates capital on Saturday, Rihanna paid a visit the next day to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Centre, where she posed for a series of photographs wearing a black jumpsuit and headscarf. She posted several of the photos on Instagram, but none of them showed the mosque staff telling her to vacate the premises.
According to an official statement from the mosque, Rihanna somehow managed to breach accepted protocol for visiting the revered place of worship, which had more than three-million visitors last year, every step of the way.
For starters, Rihanna, 25, arrived "at an entrance that was not designated for visitors." The statement also claims she showed up at the mosque "without any previous coordination with administration."
After being confronted by mosque officials and directed to the appropriate entrance, "to carry out a visit under the normal conditions," Rihanna began posing for photos against the serene mosque backdrop – which is when the real trouble began.
While the Barbados-born singer was attired in head-to-toe black during the impromptu shoot, several of the photos could be construed as suggestive, particularly the shot of her lying on her back in the mosque's courtyard.
Rihanna is also wearing eye makeup along with bright-red lipstick and nails – modern fashion accessories spurned in the bustling Islamic city.
Perhaps even more offensive was Rihanna's caption-writing. One Instagram photo shows the Diamonds singer looking toward a handful of Arab women in traditional dress with the caption, "bitch stole my look."
So far, Rihanna's publicity team hasn't issued any acknowledgment or public apology for the incident. Nor has she directly addressed the issue for her 32-million followers on Twitter.
For better or worse, Rihanna's public profile hasn't been this high since she cancelled her appearance at the Grammy Awards in early 2009 after being assaulted by former boyfriend Chris Brown (who was arrested and charged with assault). And regardless of all bad publicity, Rihanna is currently having one heck of a road trip.
A few weeks ago, Rihanna tweeted a photo of herself with a protected species called a slow loris that resulted in Thailand police arresting the creature's handlers. Not long after, she posted a raunchy tweet that got the owner of a Thai sex club arrested.
Ah, well. At least she isn't making her bodyguards carry her up the Great Wall of China.