Buzzy Cannes Premiere Gets Rihanna's Stamp of Approval After Song Use
What's your favorite Rihanna track? It may be hard to choose...
"Sex With Me" might be up there and still plays on the radio to this day, including on the SiriusXM channel Hits on 1. And now, you can hear it on the big screen.
This year's Cannes Film Festival is underway and features a buzzy new film from actor-filmmaker Jordan Firstman (HBO's I Love LA). Club Kid just premiered in France and received a lengthy standing ovation, per Deadline.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Firstman's feature debut as writer-director-star opens with a flashback to 2016, where a group of friends pile into an Uber where Rihanna's chart-topper "Sex With Me" plays.
"[Producers] begged me to shoot alts, and I said, ‘No, I'm not doing it. We will get the song,'" Firstman, 34, told THR in an interview article published Friday, May 15.
By the time filmmakers learned that Club Kid would be debuting at Cannes this month, they reportedly still hadn't heard from Rihanna regarding the use of "Sex With Me."
"There did come a time about three weeks ago, where they're like, ‘What are we going to do?'" Firstman told THR. "And I was like, ‘Just trust. It will work itself out. I know if Rihanna sees this, she's gonna gag for it.' We got it to her, and she did."
"Jordan's unique because he's, technically, a first-time filmmaker, but he's anything but green," Ryan Heller, head of backing studio Topic, told THR. "He was coming with a level of experience that was distinct from what you might think of as a first time director."
This year's festival has lots of star power, meanwhile, including Jane Fonda. The two-time Oscar winner, 88, turned heads on May 12 while arriving for the opening ceremony, wearing a shimmering long-sleeved black gown covered in sequins, paired with a dramatic silver necklace from Pomellato's, Nudo rings and her signature gray curls styled in voluminous waves.
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This story was originally published May 15, 2026 at 10:57 AM.