Coat, IM Men. Sunglasses, Ray-Ban. Earrings, Bulgari. Tie, Dior.
High up on the 18th floor of a luxury hotel, A$AP Rocky is talking polyamory. It’s not what you think. This isn’t about him and his famous partner. He isn’t judging anyone’s consensual lifestyle either. He just can’t tell what’s genuine these days. “It’s not for everybody,” he says. “Half these guys are just doing it for the camera, the look, the facade. But they go home lonely. No companionship. Nobody to let your stress out and vent to. Nobody to lift you up when you’re down.”
But then he mentions two entertainers, Ne-Yo and DeRay Davis, who’ve both been open about having multiple girlfriends. “I see them, and I’m like, Oh, salute. That must be fun,” Rocky says, then pauses, dropping his tone. He speaks from behind blacked-out Ray-Ban sunglasses, with a distinct croak in his voice. “But I know that that is a lot of work, bro. I say to myself, Yo, that shit looks amazing, but is it easy?”
A few years ago, pre-Rih, when the Harlem native with the charming gold-toothed smile was still in his rock star phase, having the wildest of nights, this conversation might have gone differently. Now Rocky is a blissfully committed father of two with a third on the way, a rapper, actor, and fashion icon, wondering if the men living the life he once did are happy. He used to enjoy being a playboy—he says he thought you had to be like that “to consider yourself a rock star”—but “There’s no longevity in that,” he’s learned. “What’s really fly is raising a family, bro, and loving them. Being there.”
Coat, blazer, sweater, pants, belt bag, Ferragamo. Sunglasses, Ray-Ban. Earrings, rings, Bulgari. Shoes, Puma.
Jacket, jeans, belt, Celine. Sunglasses, Ray-Ban. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves.
We meet on a hot August afternoon in a suite at the Park Hyatt, with a view of the midtown Manhattan skyline. Rocky is winding down from a morning of press for his role as a villainous young rapper in Highest 2 Lowest, the Spike Lee-directed crime thriller starring Denzel Washington. Seated in a burned-honey-toned leather chair across from me, Rocky looks like your favorite rich uncle in the middle of story time, dressed head-to-toe in Celine: a tweed blazer over a white logo tee, dark denim, and patent leather dress shoes. The streetwear flash of his earlier days has expanded to include a more refined, dandy style he’s been calling his “quiet luxury” era. What started as a discussion of hip-hop in the Reagan era (“Our parents are living, walking trauma,” Rocky says) naturally led us to the topic of love.
More than ever, Rocky knows how lucky he is to be here, doing what he enjoys. Earlier this year, he faced up to 24 years in prison after a former friend and member of the rap crew A$AP Mob accused Rocky of firing a gun during a fight back in 2021. He was acquitted in February after a high-profile trial that drew as much attention for his Saint Laurent suits as for the verdict. “I knew I was innocent,” Rocky says. “I ain’t no fucking gangster. I’m a pretty boy. I wear that like a badge of honor.” As for his trial fashion, he says, “I didn’t want to look too formal or tacky. If somebody asks you to come to court, regardless of what the affair is for, you better show up with some integrity, and that’s all I did. I got dressed.”
Coat, shirt, tie, Dior.
Almost as soon as the trial ended, the floodgates opened. Within just a few months, Rocky took on a role as creative director at Ray-Ban, headlined the Rolling Loud festival, and cochaired the Met Gala, where Rihanna revealed her latest pregnancy. He also focused on new projects, including a jazz-inspired fall Puma collaboration (he’s a creative director for that brand, too) and two A24 films: Highest 2 Lowest and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a trippy fever-dream drama about motherhood, in theaters this October. Oh, and a week before we met, he helped close out Lollapalooza, hovering above the stage in a helicopter, rocking pink hair rollers.
After four years under legal constraints, Rocky is savoring his freedom while trying to balance family life with expanding creative ambitions. He wants to be his generation’s blueprint for the modern Renaissance man (“Like, if Miles Davis was still alive and he was a rapper,” he explains). But with it, some of his dreams get deferred. Lately, for Rocky, it’s his music. He’s still planning to release his elusive fourth studio album, Don’t Be Dumb, but it remains an infinite mystery to fans. “I don’t want to primarily blame it on my case, but life was lifeing,” he says of the album’s delay. “We don’t plan on having children, but when it happens, you gotta adjust and move with it. I gotta be present for my family, because that’s first.”
Jacket, shirt, shorts, hat, socks, shoes, bags, Louis Vuitton. Sunglasses, A$AP Rocky x Ray-Ban. Earrings, Bulgari. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves.
Rocky made his film debut in 2015, playing a drug dealer in the nerdy coming-of-age dramedy Dope, and reprised a similar role as a hustler in 2018’s Monster. Spike Lee—whose wife, Tanya Lewis Lee, produced the latter movie—recalls hugging Rocky at an L.A. screening of Highest 2 Lowest and telling him, “Your next film, please don’t play a rapper. I don’t want you to get pigeonholed.” Lee tells me that Rocky “has this aura, and he’s dynamic. He’s an actor who raps.”
Rocky plans on stretching his acting range. But diving into roles can be all-consuming. “I don’t fuck around,” he says. “I can’t be making music decisions and being on tour. I have to be in one place. I have to embody this character. I can’t give 100 percent on everything if I’m being pulled in different directions. And unfortunately, you gotta sacrifice certain things to follow your calling. These films don’t pay you a trillion dollars. This is more so my destiny. I’m a man of the arts.”
Coat, cardigan, shirt, pants, shoes, bag, Hermès. Sunglasses, Ray-Ban. Earrings, Bulgari. Watch, Audemars Piguet.
Jacket, pants, scarf, David Koma. Shirt, Uniqlo. Earrings, Bulgari. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves. Socks, Louis Vuitton. Boots, Timberland.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a frantic psychological thriller starring Rose Byrne as a therapist named Linda. The film explores motherhood as a profoundly terrifying, mind-altering experience. Rocky’s character, James, a motel super, becomes an outlet for Linda’s emotional unraveling. His main critique, if you will, is that he wishes the costume department had changed up his look (maybe had him wearing locs, he suggests), so that audiences wouldn’t see A$AP Rocky onscreen. (“I’m just self-conscious about that,” he adds.) While filming in Montauk, Long Island, Byrne says Rocky would toss out ideas like having their characters sip on “some crazy drink.” (It was lean, Rocky says.)
“He has a natural curiosity about him and a great amount of respect for the work, and he’s innately creative. My scenes with him are hard, because I had to be extremely mean,” Byrne says with a laugh. “I think his character is the hardest to play, because he’s genuine and empathic to the others. It was like a fun dance we had back and forth. He’d come up with extraordinarily creative insults to call me. But he says it, and then he smiles. And you’re like, I guess you can get away with this. It’s like a supernatural charm.” He does have a way about him.
Jacket, boots, Loewe. Earrings, Bulgari. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves.
“That whole fucking film is an anxiety attack,” Rocky sums up, admitting he hasn’t yet come around to the concept of therapy. “My outlook on therapy is so pessimistic, it’s not even funny. I might get killed for this,” he says, “but I put therapists in the same box as psychic readings.” This part of the conversation feels like a land mine. His point is that he finds it hard to trust a therapist’s ability to connect with him. “I look at it like, Yo, if you don’t share the same experiences,” he says, “what’s the point of me telling a stranger my business for an hour straight, for them to just say, ‘Okay, well, how did that make you feel?’ ” When I reason that there’s been a push for more Black therapists in the field, he smiles and remarks, mischievously, “I think Jay-Z is a Black therapist.” Of course, music is therapy, and rappers help listeners process emotions. Metaphorically speaking, Rocky argues, “A lot of people come to him with their problems.”
Anyone familiar with Harlem knows Rocky’s smooth talking comes partly from his upbringing in a cultural capital that might actually be the birthplace of rizz. The rapper, born Rakim Mayers, grew up in the neighborhood with his mother and sister, first on 116th Street and Morningside Avenue, moving in and out of shelters, occasionally visiting his father in Pennsylvania. By 22, he’d established himself as the young, swaggering phenom from the A$AP Mob crew whose breakout 2011 hit “Peso” and subsequent mixtape, Live.Love.A$AP, revitalized New York rap, and whose effortless high-low style helped formally bond streetwear to high fashion. “You’d never see a T-shirt with a fucking Celine logo on it 10, 15 years ago. That was beyond them. They didn’t do T-shirts,” Rocky says. “They didn’t do men’s clothes back then, but there’s a need for it, there’s an ask for it because of the demographics, the trends we’re setting.”
Robe, shirt, trousers, shoes, Prada. Earrings, Bulgari. Brooch, ring, Van Cleef & Arpels.
When I ask him what he loves about fashion, he says, head tilted, “Maybe how I feel in it. Maybe the confidence and pizzazz and swag. I look really great in clothes, you know. I think so, at least. And I show other people, ‘This is how you should do it.’” He stops himself. “I hope I don’t come across as, like, one of those guys who are cool and inspirational, but too much on their own fucking…you know.”
Still, the average pop culture fan today might recognize Rocky more as a stylish dad and partner to a pop star and beauty mogul. Their relationship dates back to at least 2013, when Rihanna appeared in the music video for Rocky’s single “Fashion Killa.” A star couple was born that day, though they didn’t realize it at the time. Or, as Rocky tells it, they actually did—you know, cosmically. Fans noticed the chemistry, too. Some noticed it even earlier when they appeared together at the 2012 MTV Music Awards. “People already, in their minds, were like, ‘I want them together.’ And that’s why it’s not so off-brand for them. A lot of people grew up with us,” he says.
Jacket, jeans, belt, Celine. Sunglasses, Ray-Ban. Watch, Cartier. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves. Boots, Burberry.
They’ve been public since late 2019, and while it’s a blessing to find a partner to share goals, closets, and creative concepts with, there are boundaries. “We try to keep the business separate. What she does is what she does, and what I do is what I do. But when we collab, that’s fun because I get to be creative with her. She’s so trusting of me,” Rocky says, now sipping a latte in the hotel suite. He starred in a campaign for Rihanna’s Fenty Skin Lux Balm; she showed up to support his Puma x F1 capsule launch pop-up at an abandoned gas station in Las Vegas. Naturally, brands love that Rocky is willing to execute an unconventional idea, many of which he pitches. “He’s not someone who shows up like, ‘What are we going to do?’ He does a lot of homework,” says Puma’s chief product officer, Maria Valdes. “He’s very like a nerd, very into it.”
As a couple, he and Rih leave work at the door. “We don’t talk too much about work, because we deal with that all day, every day,” he says. “When you come home, it’s about family. It’s about your relationship. It’s about your household. It ain’t about all that other shit.” When I ask if he’s looking forward to being a husband, he quips, “How you know I’m not already a husband?” He clarifies, with a laugh, “I’m still not gonna confirm it.”
The pair welcomed their first child, RZA Athelston Mayers, in May 2022, and had their second son, Riot Rose Mayers, in August 2023. This time, he’s manifesting a baby girl. “I hope it’s a girl. I really do. We’re praying for a girl,” he says. “Our first time, we wanted to know the sex of the baby. The second time, we didn’t want to know. Third time, we don’t want to know until, you know.” He trails off. “I feel like it’s going to be a girl. This pregnancy is so different from the other two. You can tell from the experience. I hope it’s a baby girl, man. I need that.”
Coat, IM Men. Sunglasses, Ray-Ban. Tie, Dior. Shoes, Christian Louboutin.
Whenever they share pregnancy news with the world, fans joke that, once again, these two are never releasing new music. “You know what we joke about?” Rocky says, smirking. “She’s like, ‘Yo, I ain’t gonna lie. Your fans might want to kick your ass as much as my fans wanna kick my ass. What saves me is that I’m pregnant most of the time.’”
Though his musical output may seem scarce compared to some of his peers’—three studio albums and various one-off singles in 14 years—his music is still anticipated. He acknowledges, “It’s just too long for me. It’s been so long,” sounding exasperated with himself. He’s cited leaks, industry politics, and, of course, the trial as reasons for the holdup. His core fans might wonder if the artist nicknamed Pretty Flacko is still invested in hip-hop. When I ask him this, he sounds mildly outraged. “Yeah!” he replies, matter-of-factly. “It’s my career,” he says. “Do I depend on that to get my money? No. And that’s what people should appreciate about me. That’s not my cash cow. I treat it with way more spirituality. It’s sacred.”
When he dabbled in what he calls an “experimental, Dean Blunt, U.K.” sound for his most recent album, 2018’s Testing, his sales softened, which surprised him. He believes his perfectionism is taken as a lack of confidence in his music. “The content needs to come from a place of reality. I don’t want to fabricate. I became the guy that I became because I was a ladies’ man. All right, where I’m at now?” he says. “I’m in acting mode right now. But when Flacko mode is in full effect, they’re gonna know.”
Coat, shirt, shorts, tie, socks, shoes, Dior.
Jacket, shirt, shorts, hat, Louis Vuitton. Sunglasses, A$AP Rocky x Ray-Ban. Earrings, Bulgari. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves.
Last spring, Pretty Flacko appeared on Future and Metro Boomin’s single “Show of Hands,” casually dissing Drake, who’d previously (allegedly) dissed both Rocky and Rihanna in songs. Drake responded to Rocky again on “Family Matters,” a diss track aimed at Kendrick Lamar. (It’s like a Days of Our Lives storyline.) Though Rocky abstained from the escalating beef, he was just as entertained as the rest of us. “It was healthy for hip-hop,” he says. “The battle was between Kendrick and Drake, not Drake and everybody else who might have said something at that time, and that’s mainly why I fell back. I just hate the way it’s turning out with [Drake] suing and all that. What part of the game is that? What type of shit is that? That’s none of my business, I guess.”
There’s still the matter of whether A$AP Mob is still a crew, given that Rocky’s trial involved a former member accusing him. Rocky confirms they haven’t broken up. He considers some of them brothers, but they are in the process of repairing wounds. “I ain’t bullshitting. This ain’t no politically correct answer,” he says. “Anybody who used to be my protégés, my friends, my musical band partners, and they don’t fuck with me, that’s ’cause they don’t fuck with me. I don’t have animosity toward anybody. I don’t have a reason to. I’m too happy.”
Jacket, shirt, shorts, hat, socks, shoes, Louis Vuitton. Sunglasses, A$AP Rocky x Ray-Ban. Earrings, Bulgari. Gloves, Wing & Weft Gloves.
He’s speaking calmly but from a place of frustration, though he won’t get into specifics. He feels unappreciated. “I played a father figure for a lot of these guys despite us being close in age. It’s different when people are sleeping on your floor, your couch, your bed. When you’ve got 13 people living in a one-bedroom apartment, and you just got money—especially when you don’t have to. So I look at it as my children just being rebellious.” Ultimately, he’s okay with letting some friendships go. “I’m not trying to paint myself out to be a victim,” he says. “I really do sleep well at night, because I know I’m not trying to do anybody dirty. I just want everybody to be together.”
Rocky might look like he hasn’t aged a bit, but the past year alone has likely sped up the process. He leans forward in his chair and points out a few silver strands winding through his cornrows. “I’m about to be 40 in a few years. I’m ready to embrace that motherfucker,” he says, grinning. “I got these pretty gray hairs growing. I’m ready.”
Robe, shirt, trousers, shoes, Prada. Earrings, Bulgari. Brooch, rings, Van Cleef & Arpels.
Now that his life and nervous system have stabilized, he can exhale and reflect. He can’t remember if it was before or after the Highest 2 Lowest premiere at Cannes, but sometime in May, he had a happy cry in the French Riviera. He remembers thinking, alone in a hotel room, Yes, bro, you are lucky. You are blessed. “No lie. This is crazy. This is no joke. Like, an average person probably would never know what I’m talking about. This ain’t an average feeling,” he explains. “A lot of times, circumstances and money block you from seeing how fortunate you are, because people measure fortune with commerce and economics. That’s gonna come,” he says. “This is really what I love in life, and somebody tried to take it away. As a man, I cried, man. Tears of joy.” He pauses for a few beats until his frown literally turns upside down. “I still look handsome when I cry, though,” he says, and cracks up again. “I’m not an ugly-cry type of guy.”
Hair by Tashana Miles at Exclusive Artists; barber: Danny Espinal; grooming by Mirna Jose at See Management; manicure by Dawn Sterling at E.D.M.A.; set design by Colin Phelan; produced by Jennifer Pio at We Folk.
A version of this story appears in the October 2025 issue of ELLE.
