It's been a few months since embattled former NAACP chapter leader Rachel Dolezal enraged many for pretending to be Black, but singing sensation Rihanna doesn't think poorly of the controversial figure.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Rihanna called Dolezal a "hero" for being so passionate about Black culture that she chose to call it her own.

“I think she was a bit of a hero, because she kind of flipped on society a little bit,” Rihanna told the publication. “Is it such a horrible thing that she pretended to be black? Black is a great thing, and I think she legit changed people’s perspective a bit and woke people up.”

During the spring, Dolezal was thrust into the spotlight after her parents, Lawrence and Ruthanne Dolezal, told media outlets that their daughter is actually white and has been misrepresenting her identity as a Black woman for a long time. In June, Dolezal did an interview with TODAY show host Matt Lauer, who pulled up a photo from her childhood in which she has blond hair, pale skin, and freckles, and asked whether she was white or Black.

"Visibly, she would be identified as white by people who see her," Dolezal said. "In that picture, during that time, [I was not identifying as a Black woman]."

Dolezal went on to say that she's identified as Black since she was a little girl, as she liked using the brown crayon over the peach one to draw herself. She added that "the timing of [going viral for this controversy] was a shock" but that she always had a feeling she would be confronted about her identity.

Here is how several people reacted to the Dolezal scandal earlier this year: