Rihanna Is ‘Upset’ Jay Z & Tidal Ruined Her Album Rollout, According to Former Publicist

With “Work” reigning atop the Billboard Hot 100 for the 9th week in a row, it’s almost easy to forget how disastrous Rihanna’s ‘Anti’ album campaign rollout was.

Almost.

Rih’s former publicist, Jonathan Hay, says that Rih certainly hasn’t forgotten and that she’s ‘upset’ at the whole situation. He also adds feels Tidal is ‘destroying the legacy’ of popular artists.

via the Mirror:

Record producer Jonathan Hay, who worked with RiRi in 2005, says that being part of the subscription-only streaming site is destroying the legacy of popular artists.

And he claims that Rihanna was “upset” when her latest album Anti sold just 460 copies in the first week after it was given away for free by Tidal.

Jonathan, 42, explains: “Tidal is lame. It’s embarrassing for Jay Z. And now to see Kanye West do the Tidal album and his record doesn’t chart, and then Rihanna’s first week, it was a disaster.

“For Jay Z to make his artists do this is so bad because this is affecting their legacy.

“It’s really crazy and I know for a fact Rihanna is upset about the Tidal thing and you can see it when you go to her Twitter.

“She is a Tidal owner, but on her Twitter to pick up her album, she uses a Google plus app not Tidal.

“That’s her shooting back because Jay Z is just making a mistake.”

After months of hype around her eighth album Anti with a projected release date of January 29, it showed up two days early on Tidal.

It quickly disappeared with the streamer blaming it on a “system error” made by Universal, the parent company of Rihanna’s label Roc Nation, before it was put on iTunes.

Jonathan continues: “The rollout was sloppy, the rollout was bad, to go on Tidal exclusively and eliminate Spotify and Apple is absolutely mad.

“Thirty years from now, people will just see her first week was a flop. Kanye has now been called a flop. And it’s all because of this Tidal s***.”

In 2005, Jonathan helped publicise Rihanna’s debut album Pon de Replay and spread the false rumour that she was dating Jay Z when he was with Beyonce.

He is releasing his own album The Urban Hitchcock on Spotify even though Tidal have called him a “rising star”.

Jonathan adds: “Just imagine if Adele came out with a Tidal exclusive, it would be weird, it just needs to go away because Jay Z is affecting his artists’ brands. I fear Rihanna is losing and she is going to start going down.”

Well, we admit the ‘Anti’ album rollout was pretty sloppy and we’re certain Rihanna wasn’t happy about her album getting leaked early…but it sounds like Jonathan is looking for a little added publicity for his project.