Rihanna‘s monumental return to the music industry with the 2023 Super Bowl halftime performance following a years-long absence has now been overshadowed by a controversy surrounding the singer’s attire.
The negative press stems from the belt Rihanna, who is currently expecting her second child with longtime boyfriend A$AP Rocky, wore with her all-red ensemble. On Feb. 12, in a viral Twitter post, media personality Stew Peters called out Rihanna after suggesting that her belt buckle looked similar to the Star of David. The Star of David is commonly used within the Jewish community to symbolize their identity and faith.
In the upload, Peters claimed in the caption, as he shared a zoomed-in photo of Rihanna’s belt, that The “Needed Me” vocalist allegedly wore the belt buckle with the red outfit to show the world that she and the entertainment industry were “worshipping the devil.” While mistaking the Star of David hexagram shape as a pentagram, the 42-year said, “How will the masses know we’re worshiping satan? Easy. We’re going to put a pentagram on your devil suit.”
The controversy caused Star of David to trend as many said it looked more silimar to that than a pentagram. As Peters’ followers began viewing his post, a handful decided to bash the Stew Peters Show host for sharing a Photoshopped image after retrieving the actual photo of Rihanna’s belt.
One Twitter user told Peters that Rihanna’s alleged belt was, in fact, a “safety harness buckle” that was poorly altered.
At the same time, another individual claimed that Peters should remove his tweet after sharing the unedited snapshot of Rihanna’s harness belt.
One person said that Peters should stop sharing poorly- Photoshopped images because it’s causing a false narrative surrounding Rihanna’s performance.
Since the tweet went viral after receiving over 12,000 likes and over 500 retweets, Peters has yet to remove the post. Rihanna and the singer’s team have also not commented on the alleged photos.