Rihanna’s ‘White Powder’ Pic On Twitter Causes Outrage

Rihanna has tweeted pictures of herself at the Coachella 2012 festival, where she is seen handling a white powdery substance on top of her bodyguard’s head.

The pictures were posted to the star’s Instagram account, but have since been deleted.

Of course, because the Internet never forgets, you can see the offending pictures above and below. Many people have quickly suggested the powder in the snaps is cocaine, prompting a fresh round of tut-tutting from many media outlets and pundits.

The pics show Rihanna sitting on the shoulders of her bodyguard as she arranges white powder on the man’s head. According to UK tabloid The Mirror:

“Rihanna has posted a picture on Instagram of herself mucking about with some white powder on a man’s head at Coachella with the caption, ‘Memories don’t live like people do #coachella’. But now she’s uploaded this pic which has got everyone in a right tizzy. What’s that mound of white powder on the guy’s head? Is she chopping it up? If she’s not, she’s doing a very good job of pretending to.”

Rihanna taking the pictures down has confirmed her guilt before a tiresome judge-and-jury media, yet it’s just as possible a canny celebrity like Rihanna knew she would generate waves of publicity with this trick. Waves of publicity like this article, for example. D’oh.

As The Mirror further speculates:

“There’s no way she didn’t know everyone would be going mad trying to work out what it is – and that the automatic assumption would be that it’s cocaine. So why release the picture? Because she doesn’t care or just to cause a big hoo-hah?”