Rihanna has spoken to Oprah Winfrey about being named Esquire magazine's sexiest woman alive.

She opened up to the chat show queen in an exclusive interview on Oprah's TV channel OWN, which will be aired on the August 19.

When asked if she thrives on the attention of being a 'sex symbol' Rihanna replied: "I do not think about things like that, that's not my goal, that's not something like 'oh my gosh, I did a great thing, I had a great achievement here with this title,' I mean, I don't really understand that."

But she added that it is nice to be described as the sexiest woman alive: "It's flattering, yes, it's inaccurate but flattering, to say the least. It definitely was, I was excited about that, I thought it was cute."