The accompanying music video for Kiss It Better was directed by British fashion photographer Craig McDean and premiered on March 31, 2016. It was shot in Los Angeles over a “very long night”. A teaser for the video was released a day earlier on March 30 via Rihanna’s Vevo account on YouTube.
Keeley Gould and Ciara Pardo served producers for the visual which was shot entirely in black-and-white. In an interview with The Fader, McDean explained that the inspiration for the video was based on ideas which were inspired by dadaism and surrealism, “It all comes from you as a person, your inner inspiration and ideas you’ve had inside for a lifetime.”
Jessie Katz of Billboard described the storyline of the video, it “features the singer intermittently standing, writhing on the ground and floating through space through various stages of undress while she sings to the Prince-esque synth and electric guitar track. In fact, Rihanna is the entire video — there’s no backdrop at all.”
Cosmopolitan’s Eliza Thompson wrote that “the clip shows Rihanna rolling around under sheets while dice roll up and down her body, writhing on the floor in sheer lingerie, and stripping off her oversize business-lady suit.” According to McDean the idea to include dice in the video came from him and his creative partner Masha Vasyukova, “Sometimes it’s all about combining things that might not make any sense, [like] subconsciousness and dreams. Dice is such a graphic and surrealistic object so it came into play.”
The video ends with Rihanna walking away slowly into a dark background.