How a Single Instagram DM From Rihanna Changed This 25-Year-Old Woman’s Life Forever

July 13, 2015

Ever wondered who is actually looking at your public Instagram profile?

Sanam, 25, was invited to play the bottle-smashing bad gal pal in Rihanna’s music video. In an interview with Vice, which aired on July 5, Sanam explained the sequence of events that led to meeting Rihanna.

A few months ago, she checked her Instagram and noticed that she had a new follower: “Badgalriri,” or Rihanna’s Instagram username. However, she quickly noticed that Rihanna had unfollowed her moments later:

“When I refreshed my notifications, she had unfollowed me, so I was sad about it. then two weeks later, she followed me again. The next morning, I went to work, and I got a DM from her on Instagram.”

“She was like, ’Hey, I have this idea I want to run by you. I think you’re so f–king rare. Let me know if you’re interested.’ I had no idea what she was talking about. I was just freaking out, because Rihanna is messaging me on Instagram, telling me that she thinks I’m cool.”

Things moved pretty quickly from there and Sanam found her in front of the pop star herself, she told Vice.

“She followed me on Instagram on a Wednesday night, and then I was in L.A. on Friday morning. It was crazy.”

Sanam is a big fan of Rihanna’s and revealed what it was like to meet the singer:

“She’s so sweet. She was showering us with compliments. She is so fucking real and down-to-earth, which is the corniest thing to say about a famous person, but she really is.”

Sanam recounted asking Rihanna about how she found her:

“When we were down there, the first day I met her, I was like, ’How did you find me?’ She was like, ’I saw you on my Explore page.’ She saw that picture of me where I was wearing my nath and my tika. She was like, ’I just thought you were so cool, and I was like, I don’t know if I should message her or not. I don’t know if she’s going to be down.’ I’m just sitting there, like, ’Are you crazy? How could you be nervous to message me?’”

Sanam admitted that starring in Rihanna’s music video was a life-changer:

“I posted one selfie [on Tumblr] that really blew up. I’ve been on the internet for a really long time. So I really had some kind of a following, but not on this scale.”

Source: MTV

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