Travis Barker Rihanna — An Item?!

Well, here’s a Love Connection Headscratcher: Are Rihanna and rocker Travis Barker an item? That’s the story from MediaTakeOut.com (We know….We know…). Shh! Don’t tell Shana Moakler!

Sources for The Urban World’s answer to The National Enquirer claim the the singer and the former Blink-182 drummer have become Tinseltown’s latest unlikely couple after meeting an becoming friends several years ago. They even went on a few dates years back. TakeOut tattles say Rihanna and Travis plan to drop the deets on their bombshell romance in a photoshoot next month. In fact, Rihanna will reportedly be featured in Travis’ upcoming video for “Can A Drummer Get Some.”

In recent years, Barker has earned a ton of street cred in recent years thanks to remixes and collaborations with artists such as Diddy, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil’ Wayne, Drake, Soulja Boy, and Mary J. Blige.He’s currently slated to drop his debut solo project, also titled Give The Drummer Some, later this year. The album will feature appearances from Rick Ross, Slaughterhouse, Lil’ Wayne, and Swizz Beatz.

Though Travis is a divorced dad of two, Britain’s Now! Magazine credit the love affair with helping 22-year-old RiRi bounce back from a horror list of public scandals in recent months, including an international ban of her popular single and video “S&M,” unsubstantiated claims of a lesbian fling, and rumors that her slugger ex Matt Kemp cheated on her.

“Rihanna’s in pieces after what she’s calling the worst three months of her life. She’s in a bad place right now and has been drinking and partying a lot to try to take her mind off it,” says a pal.

Last week, speculation mounted about Rihanna’s sexuality when Hollywood socialite Tajah Burton leaked extracts from her upcoming autobiograpy that claimed to reveal she’d had a lesbian fling with the singer.

“It seems like Tajah’s just trying to drum up publicity for her book, but the attention’s been too much for Rihanna to bear. The last thing she needs right now is any more mayhem surrounding her private life. The split from Matt was really hard on her. There were so many rumors that he cheated on her, which broke her heart.”

Until we see this duo walking the red carpet hand in hand, we’re not putting Rihanna and Travis in the couple category just yet.