Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in
Saint Michael, Barbados, to Monica Braithwaite, a retired accountant, and Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor for a garment factory.[SUP]
[14][/SUP] Her mother, a native of
Guyana, is
Afro-Guyanese, and her father is of
Barbadian and Irish descent.[SUP]
[15][/SUP] The eldest of three siblings, she has two younger brothers from the same two parents, Rorrey and Rajad Fenty.[SUP]
[16][/SUP] She also has two half-sisters and a half-brother from her father's side, each born by different mothers before Rihanna's father married her mother.[SUP]
[17][/SUP][SUP]
[18][/SUP] She grew up listening to
reggae music,[SUP]
[19][/SUP] and began singing at around the age of seven.[SUP]
[16][/SUP] Her childhood was deeply affected by her father's addiction to
crack cocaine,
alcohol, and
marijuana,[SUP]
[20][/SUP] and her parents' rocky marriage ended when she was 14, although, he remained a part of her life.[SUP]
[14][/SUP] During her parents' marriage, she suffered from excruciating headaches that doctors thought she had brain tumour and underwent several
CAT scans from the age of 8 till her parents separated.[SUP]
[21][/SUP] She grew up in a modest three-bed bungalow in
Bridgetown and would sell clothes with her dad on a street
stall.[SUP]
[22][/SUP] She attended Charles F. Broome Memorial School, a primary school in Barbados, and then the
Combermere School, where she formed a musical trio with two of her classmates.[SUP]
[16][/SUP] She was an army cadet in a sub-military programme that trained with the military of Barbados and
Shontelle was her drill sergeant.[SUP]
[23][/SUP] Although she initially wanted to graduate high school, she decided to leave school because she was too busy pursuing her musical career.[SUP]
[24][/SUP]