The music video for "Stay" was directed by Sophie Muller. On February 10, 2013, whilst walking the red carpet of the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Rihanna held an interview with Ryan Seacrest who officially revealed that the music video would premiere on E! News the following day. Rihanna described the production saying, "The video was really, really simple. I pretty much stayed put in a bathtub, and we shot it really tight, really close. There's Mikky Ekko in the video as well. This is the first time I've ever collaborated with him, so I'm excited about that because he's actually the one who wrote the song and I kinda just fell in love with it so much and in love with the tone of his voice and we wanna keep him a part of it, so you'll see him in the video." The singer added, "It's a very emotional song and it's personal, so you just think about, it's almost like telling a story, and when you tell a story, even to yourself – if you're saying it out loud and expressing how you feel – it needs to be powerful because it needs to be authentic." On February 11, Rihanna leaked an "uncut" version of the video on Twitter prior to the official premiere, featuring the singer performing to the track in one singular take, without Mikky Ekko. The official version premiered on E! News later that day. It was then uploaded to Rihanna's official Vevo account at 8am ET the following day. Shortly after the video was uploaded, it was flagged by YouTube for its sexual content. The flag has since been removed. 12 February 2013, Stay video performance was uploaded on Rihanna YouTube Channel and has received more than 932 million views as of December 2020.