I'd believe this; they're pretty reliable. They were spot-on about Miley's album and everything surrounding Adele's album. The reason they may have had wrong information before is because Rihanna spent so long tossing around dates and whatever.
Regardless, this is seriously so messy.... The lead single was released pretty close to a year ago (two months short, more or less). The promotion has been awful. If she wasn't ready and she knew she wasn't ready, she shouldn't have released stuff. Trust me. She's eight studio albums into her career, and she's one of pop music's biggest names; she could afford to take a few years off. People would still be waiting for her when she came back. But this is messier than the
ARTPOP era. Everything she's done this era has been a huge mistake (although "Bitch Better Have My Money" is a bop

).