Rihanna used to take ''months off'' from going to the beach every time a new 'Jaws' was released.

The 26-year-old singer - who was born in Barbados - admits the horror film franchise, which spawned four movies, used to leave her fearing the sea near her home was infested with sharks, but when she did brave it and go for a dip her father used to jokingly hum the motion picture's spine-chilling theme tune to spook her.

When asked if she watched the film as a child, she told the March 2015 edition of Harper's Bazaar magazine: ''It freaked me out because I was a beach baby, so every time a new 'Jaws' came out I would take months off from the beach or just sit on the sand.

''If I happened to get in the water, my dad would hum the theme music, and I was right back out of it.

''But that was really my fault because I was obsessed with 'Jaws'. Steven Spielberg was my childhood hero.''

Rihanna insists she is not a ''sensitive'' person but is grateful she managed to develop a thick skin during her school days because she wouldn't have survived being famous otherwise.

She added: ''This skin has been developing since my first day at school. It didn't happen after fame; I couldn't survive fame if I didn't already have it. So sometimes the toughest thing in life is to be vulnerable.

''I'm not generally a sensitive person, but I tend to be more sensitive toward others and what they're going through. I don't know if that's the healthiest thing, but it's the truth.''

The full interview with Rihanna appears in the March 2015 edition of Harper's Bazaar magazine.