Rihanna denies that performing at the Super Bowl means her new album is coming: 'That's not true'

• Rihanna says her upcoming Super Bowl performance doesn't mean a new album is on the horizon.
• "That's not true," she told AP News. "Super Bowl is one thing. New music is another thing."

Rihanna shut down speculation that a her much-anticipated ninth album is on the horizon, sparked by her forthcoming headline performance at Super Bowl LVII.

"That's not true. Super Bowl is one thing. New music is another thing. Do you hear that, fans?" she recently told AP News.

She added: "The second that I announced this, I said, 'Oh, my God, they're going to think my album is coming. I need to get to work.'"

The Fenty Beauty founder previously confirmed that she will return to the stage for football's main event in February 2023.

As Billboard noted, pop stars have historically used the Super Bowl to advertise new releases or launch global tours — so many fans took Rihanna's announcement as an indication that her next album, affectionately nicknamed "R9," would finally arrive.

However, in her interview with AP News, Rihanna said she simply saw the Super Bowl as "a challenge that I welcomed" and "a stage bigger than anything I've ever done."

The chart-topping singer hasn't released an album since 2016's "Anti." She has been teasing R9 since at least 2018, when she revealed to Vogue that her new album would be influenced by Bob Marley and reggae music.

Later that year, she promised fans that new music was coming in "2019," but no such album materialized.

More recently, Rihanna gave birth to her first child with A$AP Rocky and released her first new song in six years: "Lift Me Up," written as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman for the "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" film soundtrack.