Is Rihanna releasing new album ANTI just in time for Christmas?

It looks like Australia's The Today Show may have let the very exciting cat out of the controlled-marketing-campaign bag:

Welp... They deleted the tweet! @TheTodayShow #ANTIdiaRy #Anti @rihanna pic.twitter.com/HVdZfcbuQI

— Nick Barnes (@imnickbarnes) December 23, 2015

Rihanna first announced the album at a lavish event in Los Angeles. She also revealed the art and some of the album's themes, but then went quiet on the new music front - close collaborator Sia even publicly said that the record wasn't finished as recent as two weeks ago.

Perhaps The Today Show are wrong. Maybe RiRi will make them look right silly by delaying the LP further. Who knows... we could have R8 within the next 24 hours...

NME are also reckoning that the LP will be out on Christmas Day - 25 December - which conveniently falls on Friday/universal release day, due to the ramping up of the release of her ANTIdiaRy clips.

ANTI will follow 2012's Unapologetic, and is executive produced by Kanye West. It is set to feature three songs we've already had from Rihanna over the course of 2015: "Bitch Better Have My Money", "American Oxygen", and "FourFiveSeconds".

Rihanna is touring the UK, Europe, and North America in 2016 - find out more.