Why Rihanna's Fenty Beauty party in Mumbai thrilled some, frustrated others

Pop sensation Rihanna was in Mumbai this weekend to promote her makeup brand, Fenty Beauty, and chances are you already know that. After all, snippets from her visit have taken over Instagram.

She posed with the paparazzi, made reels with several beauty content creators, and even took a quick Bharatanatyam lesson from an influencer. She tried her hand at the DJ console at a party, met the Ambanis, performed aarti with them, fed a cow, and joined in a flower Holi celebration. Oh, and she paired Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi jewellery with her striking green Mugler ensemble too.

But a section of influencers also highlighted the other side of this much-talked-about visit. As per some viral videos on social media, Rihanna arrived really late at the two events held in Mumbai on April 24, and made a super-brief appearance at the second one.

If you felt envious of the people who shared uber-cool videos of "partying with Rihanna", know that they had to wait for hours to capture those brief moments.

A few influencers who were invited to the party took to social media to share the ‘truth’. Yashita Damani is one among those. “Everything on social media isn't real,” she said in a video about the event, and narrated how the night went on for her and her industry peers.

Damani recalled that guests were told the Fenty Beauty event would begin at 7:30 pm (this is about the second event that took place on Friday) and everyone arrived excited to see Rihanna. However, "hours go by, people are literally. standing, pacing, checking their phones, the crowd is tired, hungry, confused, but still waiting because it's Rihanna," she said in the clip.

Rihanna, she said, finally arrived seven hours late: at 3 am.

“I had already left, and thank God I did, because waiting hours for a two-minute appearance? We love the Queen, but honestly, at what cost,” Damani added.

Another content creator also shared a similar anecdote from the Rihanna-in-Mumbai night.

Ayesha Sanghi, a beauty influencer, shared that the first event was a smaller gathering with only a few creators, including Ankush Bahuguna and Masoom Minawala. People were invited at 5 pm, but Rihanna turned up at 10.

“You’re invited at 5 pm and Rihanna showed up at almost 10. Everyone just waited and then got a few minutes to shoot content with her,” she said, adding that a larger influencer party had already begun later in the evening.

The main party, scheduled for 7:30 pm, followed a similar pattern. Guests waited for hours as Rihanna briefly appeared around 2 am, left, and later returned to join those who stayed back.

"Rihanna showed up at almost 2 for a few minutes, disappeared again, at which point everyone, almost everyone left and there was like a mad rush for people leaving. Then she came back a while later and partied with whoever was left. I left around 2 without seeing her because I was actually outside for the 30 seconds that she came in," Sanghi said in her video.

She added that while some attendees felt the long wait was "disrespectful", others were happy just to be there.

"There's both sides with people who were just excited to be in the same room as her (Rihanna), and the other side where people said it was disrespectful and a waste of everyone's time."

Sanghi, however, admitted to feeling lucky to be part of the event.

"We were not going through any hardship. We were at a banging party full of the top creators in the industry with unlimited drinks. There were snacks being passed around. There were walls of makeup to play with, and everyone got given a big goody bag of Fenty products when they left. I think the promise of Rihanna showing up at some point kept people there way later than they normally would have stayed," Sanghi added.

Additionally, some top content creators shared AI-generated photos with Rihanna as they did not get a chance to click pictures with her in person. Actress and entrepreneur Parul Gulati and Smriti Khanna were among them.

Khanna said that meeting Rihanna felt surreal, but clarified that the image she posted was AI-generated to recreate the moment she wished she had captured. Gulati also posted a photo featuring Rihanna, but mentioned in the caption that it was an AI-generated image she could not capture in real life.

Basically, Rihanna’s Mumbai visit was sure a full of viral moments and glamour. But the experience on the ground was mixed. For some, it was exciting just to be there, while others were left waiting longer than expected.