25 year-old Rihanna is reportedly set to play one of the greatest divas of all time the sex-mad Black Venus, whose real name is Josephine Barker, who outwitted the Nazis, in new biopic!

The singer is said to have adopted similar straits as Josephine such as dancing in exotic clothing, a sex symbol, already having a concept of being in the spotlight, having a body one will die or pay for and her not giving a f*** attitude to go along, making this role a perfect fit.

Josephine was hailed as the 'Black Venus' after her dance performance in Paris. According to Tale-Tellers who saw her dance that night, had this to say:

"Josephine would step out in front of the audience entirely naked, but for a few strategically-placed flamingo-feathers. Her male dance partner carried her upside down, her long, slender legs stretched out in the splits. He set her down, and she began to dance. As the light played on her coffee-brown skin, her body seemed to become almost molten as she wound herself around her partner.

She was, she later recalled, lost in the eroticism of the moment, ‘intoxicated . . . driven by dark forces I didn’t recognize ’ as she writhed seductively before shuddering to a climactic halt.

For a few moments the Paris audience remained silent, as if stunned. Then they rose to their feet as one and erupted in ecstatic applause.

Picasso dubbed her the ‘Nefertiti of now’. Author Ernest Hemingway called her ‘the most sensational woman anyone ever saw’. It was the start of an extraordinary career.

Josephine Baker, the girl from the St Louis ghetto, rose to become one of the greatest divas ever, an icon of the Jazz Age, talented and glamorous, but also decadent and amoral.

Although Josephine might have acted the diva, spent extravagantly, behaved outrageously and numbered her lovers (male and female) in the hundreds, she was also courageous and principled, spying for the French Resistance and campaigning against racial segregation in America.

She was born in 1906. Her mother, Carrie, was a former dancer, her father — it is thought — a drummer named Eddie Carson, who left shortly after Josephine’s younger brother was born.

Today, all that many people remember of her is that she danced naked except for her famous tutu made of (fake) bananas.

And with the film about Baker is to be released next year, Rihanna herself has endured her own share of scandals, her drug-taking (according to the DailyMail) and self-conscious exhibitionism pale in comparison to Josephine's jaw-dropping exploits.