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Creativity Quote by Rihanna

"I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell"

About this Quote

Rihanna’s candor lands because it refuses the usual pop-scripted confession: she doesn’t frame herself as a victim of heartbreak so much as a strategist shaped by it. “I always keep my guard up” is the language of vigilance, not romance. It hints at a world where intimacy is negotiated under floodlights and power imbalances, where a woman’s openness gets treated as public property. The guard isn’t coyness; it’s a boundary system.

Then she pivots: “I guess that can get in the way sometimes.” That “I guess” is doing quiet work, softening what could read as an indictment. It’s a conversational shrug that invites empathy without surrendering control. She acknowledges the cost of self-protection while keeping the moral center on her own agency. No therapist-speak, no redemption arc, just a lived contradiction: defenses keep you safe, and they also keep you alone.

“I can make them go through hell” is the punchline with teeth. It’s partly bravado, partly preemptive honesty, and partly a reversal of the cultural default where men are the gatekeepers and women are the ones “difficult to love.” In Rihanna’s mouth, “hell” isn’t melodrama; it’s the toll of earning trust from someone who’s been burned and watched. The subtext: if you want access, you pay the price, and she won’t apologize for the entrance fee. That posture reads less like cruelty than a survival tactic turned into a kind of swaggering self-portrait.

Quote Details

TopicLove
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Rihanna. (2026, January 16). I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-always-keep-my-guard-up-with-guys-and-i-guess-94683/

Chicago Style
Rihanna. "I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-always-keep-my-guard-up-with-guys-and-i-guess-94683/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-always-keep-my-guard-up-with-guys-and-i-guess-94683/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2026.

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Rihanna on Guarding Her Heart: Strength and Cost
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About the Author

Rihanna

Rihanna (born February 20, 1988) is a Musician from USA.

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