A fragrant bouquet of 100 white roses was delivered to the Arcadia Senior Living facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on Saturday.
But these flowers weren’t sent by a loved one for one of the facility’s 89 residents — they were from one of the biggest stars on the planet.
Rihanna herself sent the bouquet to congratulate some residents who took part in a now massively viral TikTok clip in which a group of older women re-created a section of her Super Bowl halftime show last month.
The delivery came with a note that called the dance "amazing."
“We were just in shock,” Paige Oakes, the center’s director of community relations, told BuzzFeed News. “This whole time, we've just been waiting for a response from Rihanna — not really thinking that it would ever happen because we know she's busy and we didn't really know if she saw it or not.
“It made our day knowing that it reached her and she got to watch it and enjoy seeing our residents dancing to her music and having fun,” Oakes said.
The decision to launch an Arcadia TikTok account was made by Oakes and Maitlin Nuckols, the facility’s director of life engagement.
Not everybody at the facility had heard of TikTok — or even Rihanna — but the pair have found no shortage of willing participants among the residents.
The Feb. 22 video was uploaded 10 days after Rihanna’s performance but has since racked up more than 30 million views on TikTok.
In the short clip, 11 women re-create their own versions of the all-white costumes that Rihanna’s backup dancers had at the big game.
As the remix of “Rude Boy” plays, the women dramatically fan out to the sides — with one getting some help from a walker to do so — and reveal resident Dora Martin, 87, dressed in red like the Fenty mogul and shaking her groove thing.
The clip captures the joyful, empowering feeling of Rihanna’s music, but Nuckols believes that it resonated with those online because it challenges their perceptions of older people.
“Everybody loves to see the older generation letting loose and having fun,” Nuckols said. “You always think of the older population in this way, and then I feel like this video just kind of shows a different side of them.”
The video has been widely covered in the news media, from the Washington Post to Fox News, and the facility has been abuzz all week from going viral.
“They’ve really just enjoyed the last week and a half and all of the attention and all of the fame,” Oakes said.
Rihanna wasn’t even the first superstar to send flowers congratulating the women for their dance moves; earlier last week, Jay-Z also sent 100 red roses on behalf of staff at his Roc Nation entertainment agency, which represents Rihanna.
Wanting to keep the mementos forever, some of the resident dancers have plans to take the roses and press them into books or turn them into jewelry.
Oakes and Nuckols have posted eight videos since launching the account on Feb. 1 with their version of Miley Cyrus’s smash hit “Flowers,” but the Rihanna video is by far the biggest in terms of views.
More than 112,000 people have since subscribed to see what the residents will get up to next, with Oakes admitting they’re feeling the pressure to try to top this viral hit.
“We're definitely gonna try to, but yeah, this is gonna be a tough one,” Oakes said. “Having a video reach 32 million people and then getting flowers from an iconic pop star — It's insane.”
Nuckols said all the TikTok clout the facility’s residents have enjoyed has even made some of their grandchildren jealous.
“Some of them are sharing the post and saying, ‘My grandma is officially cooler than me,’” she said.