Who was Ronald Fenty? Details about Rihanna’s father who reportedly passed away at 70

Rihanna’s father, Ronald Fenty, has passed away, multiple news sources report. Starcom Network, a local radio station in Barbados, reported that Ronald Fenty, 70 years old, passed away after a brief illness.

The news outlet also claimed that close family members of Fenty were with him when he passed away. TMZ leaked photos of Rihanna’s brother, Rajad Fenty, arriving at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on May 28.

The news outlet reported that the Fenty mogul was also in the car, but she wasn’t visible in the photos. Rihanna, who is pregnant with her third child, has had a complicated relationship with her late father.

More details about Rihanna’s father, Ronald Fenty, as he passes away at 70

Ronald Fenty and his wife, Monica Braithwaite, gave birth to Rihanna in February 1988. Alongside the superstar, Fenty and Braithwaite also had two other children, Rajad and Rorrey.

Ronald Fenty had three other children from his previous relationships: Samantha, Kandy, and Jamie. Fenty and Braithwaite raised Rihanna in Bridgetown, Barbados, where the Love on the Brain crooner lived until she was sixteen years old.

The couple separated when the Fenty mogul was very young and divorced in 2002 when Rihanna was 14. The singer has previously spoken about how her father was abusive to her mother while she was growing up. She told Oprah that Ronald Fenty had once broken her mother’s nose.

She also spoke out against her father when he reportedly spoke to the press without her consent following the assault scandal involving her former boyfriend, Chris Brown. Rihanna told Vogue Magazine during a cover story interview in 2011:

"You grow up with your father, you know him, you are a part of him, for goodness' sakes! And then he does something so bizarre that I can’t begin to wrap my mind around it.”

In 2012, Rihanna told Oprah that she had repaired her relationship with her father. The following year, the singer reportedly enrolled her father in a $58,000 Malibu rehab program following his arrest during a visit to California.

Ronald Fenty, who battled cocaine and alcohol addiction, was also kicked out of his daughter’s diamond ball in 2014 after reportedly getting drunk and falling over on the red carpet. In 2019, Rihanna sued her father, claiming that he had exploited her name for financial gain.

The singer alleged that her father had founded a talent development company in 2017 named Fenty Entertainment, where he posed as her manager and solicited new clients. Rihanna later dismissed the lawsuit in 2021, three weeks before it was scheduled to begin.

The official cause of death of Ronald Fenty hasn’t been revealed. Rihanna hasn’t made any official statement on her father’s passing at this time.

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