Is Rihanna’s ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ Video A Feminist Protest? We Asked One Of Its Directors

Earlier this week, Rihanna released the hella-NSFW video for ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, in which she and a group of friends kidnap and torture the wife of an accountant thought to be based on the one who allegedly nearly bankrupted her in 2008. Unsurprisingly, given Rhi spends big chunks of the video covered in blood, wielding chainsaws and cavorting naked, it’s had the internet in a spin – but what’s it all about? We tracked down Leo Berne, one fourth of director group Megaforce, to get a better sense of the dizzying short film’s meaning.

How did you get involved with Rihanna and were did the idea for the ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ video come from?

Leo Berne, Megaforce: “As usual it’s a bit of a competition at the beginning [to get the commission]. There was a brief about the ideas of the video that came from Rihanna with the whole kidnapping thing, so we had to read that and give our vision and our views on how we would like it to work through cinematography. We shared that with her and it turned out that they liked our vision. From that we started to work together.”

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What do you think makes your video different to previous Rihanna videos?

“Well, firstly there’s a bit of narrative in it and Rihanna is acting in it, which is quite interesting. We didn’t want to do something that looked like a regular music video, where you just choose a location and the main singer sings in that location and that’s it basically. We wanted to do a mix between that kind of video – the classic kind of video – and something that would be more special [so she could] develop her character and some characters around her. The two henchmen that she has are individual characters.”

So where was the video filmed and when did you make it?

“We shot it at the beginning of April in Los Angeles.”



Was it a fun shoot? It looks like a lot of fun.

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“It was fun and pretty hectic at the same time. Sometimes we would shoot all night and sometimes we would shoot all day, or we would start at night and finish at the end of the second day. So yeah, it was exciting I guess because we had big ambitions for this video. It’s also really stressful.”

Did you anticipate it being controversial?

“With the other videos that we’ve done, some of them could have been controversial, but it’s never been our aim to do that. It’s just the tone of the video [this time]. The song is about kidnapping, and we wanted to stay true to the tone of the song. It was never our intention to be controversial.”

What do you think Rihanna wanted from the video, from what you’ve been told, what do you think she wanted to achieve from the video?

“I think she wanted something impactful; I think she wanted to surprise people.”

Do you think the video is a feminist statement or not?

“I don’t think that… I haven’t thought about that actually. We thought it was a little bit of a girl power spirit, but I wouldn’t say it was a feminist statement. That was never a part of the conversation with Rihanna.”

You’ve worked with people like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Two Door Cinema Club in the past, how does this shoot differ to some of the bands you’ve worked with?

“When we work with big artists it’s always different because we have to deal with way more people, so it’s not like we have the same independence that we have with bands. When we’re with bigger artists, it’s more of collaboration and we can’t just do anything we want. On [‘Bitch Better Have My Money’], I saw her story and we really had to serve that story and see and understand what she wanted what she didn’t want. We had to find out where our freedom lay in this system. It is very different in this [higher profile] system.”

Are there plans to work with Rihanna again?

“Sure, why not? Yeah, of course. It was interesting. She wanted to do it, we’re happy with the result, so yeah – of course I would.”

Any kind of memories or stories from the set that stand out?

“There are some great stories, but I’ve been told I definitely can’t tell them!”

Do you have a favourite moment on the video?

“I think it’s the very last shot when her face is all covered in blood. I really like that shot because it’s quite iconic. It was the very last shot of a very long day when we started at 5pm and finished at 11am the following day.”

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