It’s not rare that we hear about a celebrity getting in trouble with a more obsessed “fan”, and sometimes it’s borderline creepy. Rihanna seems to be having some issues of this type of her own lately, as she has reportedly been stalked by someone posting gun-related threats to her on social media. The singer has been in talks with the police as they’re trying to figure out who the stalker is and apprehend him.
One of the pictures posted by the stalker was a selfie taken outside of Rihanna’s home on April 30, but of course by the time the police got to the scene, he was long gone. The stalker has also been sending various threatening messages related to the singer, implying he might go after her and harm her at some point.
It seems like both Rihanna as well as the police have been taking the situation very seriously, and authorities are working hard to figure out who the suspect is. According to reports, the accounts he has been using have been listed under the names of Alex Mercer and Ralph Alexander, and the police are using electronic tracing methods in order to figure out who he is.
His first account was suspended, but he returned shortly under a different alias, and he sent a tweet out to Jay Z, asking him to “tell them in not a stalker you know me” [sic]. Of course, judging by the overall nature of the messages, it would appear that the man could be out of touch with reality at this point.
It’s not the first time that Rihanna has had to deal with issues of this type, as last month we saw reports of a man who was reportedly arrested after being escorted by three police officers and the personal bodyguard for Rihanna, after he had tried to gain entry to her apartment building in New York. Details of that case were kept mostly under wraps, as it usually happens with incidents involving stalkers.
Then, in July 2014, a homeless man was arrested for delivering creepy-sounding messages to her apartment in New York. Kevin McGlynn has been confined to a mental institution and a judge reportedly took the situation very seriously, comparing him to the murderer of John Lennon, claiming that the whole situation was a “tragedy waiting to happen”.
In October 2013, a trespasser was arrested in Rihanna’s home in Pacific Palisades, only a week after the very same property was the target of intruders while Rihanna was touring. All in all, she’s had her fair share of incidents with stalkers, and we can only imagine the kind of pressure the actress must be in when living in such conditions.
But it’s the life of a celebrity in the end, and many people learn to just get used to it and live with it at some point. Stalkers are sometimes quite dangerous, true, but they often prove to be harmless and just looking for some attention from the celebrity.
However, this doesn’t mean that such incidents don’t deserve to be treated seriously. Quite on the contrary, cases of stalking should be looked into very thoroughly in order to ensure that nothing bad will follow after the initial ordeal. Which is why police are usually very diligent in going after alleged stalkers, and put a lot of effort into figuring out their identities and subsequently apprehending them for an interrogation. Hopefully, there will be a positive update on the current situation soon.