Rihanna had no trouble straightening Natalie Portman‘s crown. The 43-year-old Lady in the Lake actress became emotional while recalling a powerful exchange she shared with the singer amid her recent divorce from Benjamin Millepied.
The interaction went down in January during Paris Fashion Week outside of the Dior couture runway show, when Portman and Rihanna crossed paths and subsequently fangirled over each other. The moment was captured on video and quickly went viral on social media.
“It was an amazing experience for me,” Portman shared on Monday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I think every woman going through a divorce should get to have Rihanna say to her that she’s a bad b**ch.”
Host Jimmy Fallon then rolled the clip, in which the 36-year-old beauty and fashion mogul tells Portman, “I am a f**king fan.”
After Portman expresses disbelief, Rihanna doubles down, “You are one of the hottest b**ches in Hollywood forever.” She continues, “You do the most innocent look and I’m like, ‘Ugh!'”
Rih’s praise didn’t stop there, as she admits, “Yo, I don’t get excited about anybody!”
As the camera cut back to Portman on The Tonight Show, she appeared to be holding back tears as she emotionally touched her eye and then her chest.
“It was a formative moment in my life,” she said.
Portman was also asked about Rihanna during her Monday morning sit-down on Today With Hoda and Jenna, declaring, “It was really exactly what I needed at that moment in my life and she served it to me. And I am forever grateful. I love her.”
The Oscar winner finalized her divorce from Millepied in February after over a decade of marriage.
Portman and the French choreographer, who met on the set of Black Swan in 2009, initially separated in May 2023 after reports surfaced of Millepied’s alleged extramarital affair. Portman quietly filed for divorce in France that July. Portman and Millepied have two children together: son Aleph, 13, and daughter Amalia, 7, and they’ve resided primarily in Paris in recent years.
Last week, ET spoke to Portman at the premiere for her upcoming Apple TV+ series. The star opened up about what sort of career path she might have pursued if she wasn’t an actress.
“I think I’d be like Jane Goodall, living with animals in the wild,” Portman told ET of the famed zoologist.
The question was posed in light of her role in Lady in the Lake, which she executive produced and stars in as Maddie, a 1960s housewife who decides to leave all she’s ever known to work as a reporter and uncover the truth of an unsolved murder.
“She’s so in a tunnel of her own needs that it’s like she’s blind to everything else around her,” Portman told ET of her character. “It was wild to inhabit her intensity.”
Portman stars in the limited series alongside Moses Ingram, who plays Cleo Johnson, a hardworking mother on a mission to advance the lives of Black people in Baltimore. The story of the two women’s differing but interconnected lives is why Portman signed on for the project.
“It had two such incredible female roles, both women looking for their freedom in this incredible world of the 1960s in Baltimore, beautifully realized by all of our designers,” she said. “[Series creator] Alma Har’el is just someone I admire so much. Her heart and her talent exceeded any expectations I had of her.”
Lady in the Lake premieres July 19 on Apple TV+.
