Rihanna and Katy Perry

Once again, rumours are swirling regarding Rihanna and Katy Perry. This most recent headline hubbub – “More Than Just Friends!” “Wild Night Out!” “Gay Affair!” – was sparked by their behaviour at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards on Sept 6. Think handholding, shoulder nibbling, smooching and ass slapping – or, what truthquake.com, desperate to scoop Sapphic, has called “crotch games.” And let’s not forget Perry’s comment when she took to the stage: “Doesn’t my girl Rihanna look sexy tonight?”

Cue flashbulbs.

The Rihanna-Katy gossip was first ignited in 2009 when the two became “inseparable”: clubbing in NYC, romping through Paris Fashion Week and frolicking in Barbados.

Since then, Rihanna and Perry have repeatedly flirted with the lady-love rumours. The pair routinely mash lips (see the 2012 Grammy Awards and the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards).

During a June 2012 interview with WiLD 94.9 FM (San Francisco Bay Area), Perry was asked if she and Rihanna had any plans to collaborate musically. “No, but we’re going to have sex,” Perry declared.

Later that same month, Rihanna told Daily Star UK that Perry and pop chanteuse Cheryl Cole “are so beautiful they could probably turn any girl to the other team,” adding, “I might even date them myself.”

And in June 2010, Perry kicked off an interview with Chicago’s 103.5 KISS FM by praising Rihanna’s lez-steamy video for “Te Amo.” “That was hot!” said Perry. “I love her for doing that.” Talk moved to Perry’s upcoming bachelorette bash (Perry was then engaged to Russell Brand). “I want [Rihanna] to strip at my bachelorette party,” Perry said. “[I want to see] the whole bit. She’s hot. I love her.”

Perry, who was heavily criticized after stating that her 2008 track “I Kissed a Girl” was rooted in tourism – “It’s fantasy, it’s a song about curiosity,” she told The New Gay in June 2008 – has since cleared up the kissed-a-girl confusion.

In January 2010, she told Glamour: “When it was all hitting, I didn’t really know how to handle it. I didn’t want it to turn into this Girls Gone Wild song. I had been through the experience – many times – [but] didn’t want to get specific. I didn’t want guys to be wanking off. For me, it was a song about the magic and mystery of a woman that makes every man – and some women – get on their knees . . . Yeah, [I’ve kissed a few girls] and God knows what else. I have a soft spot for women – I’m not afraid of it.”

And in June 2011, she told Vanity Fair that she didn’t discuss it honestly at first because a couple of “sleazy” male journalists made her uncomfortable. Said Perry: “So I said no, I hadn’t experienced it, even though I had, because I didn’t like where the guys were taking the interviews.”

Rihanna, on the other hand, has outright stated that she’s not queer. In 2009, she told New York’s Hot 97 FM, “I grab boobies all the time. I’m obsessed. I don’t have much, so anytime I see a good rack, I’m like, ‘Wow, I wish mine looked and felt like that’ . . . Women are beautiful. I’m not into them but they are hot.”

Still, Rihanna continues to play with the possibility, Perry and then some.

In April 2012, Rihanna tweeted, “I’m on my first date in almost 2 yearz.” She followed with a picture of herself and pal/personal assistant Melissa Forde (who’s long been rumoured to be Rihanna’s GF), with the tag, “#datenight my lover for the night @mforde11.”

The duo were snapped hand-in-hand leaving swank Malibu restaurant Giorgio Baldi, where they dined before hitting Hollywood’s Roxbury nightclub.

Tweeted Rihanna, “Beautiful is great, submissive is even better. Bawse b***h who’s submissive yet the captain of the ship n HONEST…#priceless #marryME” – “But she bad… So maybe she won’t…. But s**t, then again maybe she will.”

As for headlines of the “crotch game” variety? As Rihanna told Hot 97 FM, “I just have to live my life. Because [the headlines are] never – they’re hardly – accurate.”