My first meeting with Rita Ora takes place in quite exceptional circumstances. No matter how people perceive her — and best believe, they have varied views: a formidably piped pop star, the bubbly X Factor presenter, a semi-naked tabloid party girl or new wife of Academy Award-winning director Taika Waititi — today she has left all her frills at home.
Ora, 33, is listening to the stories of women and children supported by Buttle UK’s initiative, Chances for Children, as part of the Evening Standard’s Winter Survival Appeal. The charity provides grants for children and young people who have suffered trauma and crisis. Many have escaped abusive situations. She is here ‘to discover stories and shine a light where I can on people who deserve a chance’, she says. And so the red carpet starlet is sitting in the playroom of a women’s refuge house, the largest in London and currently home to 21 families. Kids’ paintings are blue-tacked on walls, little duffle coats hang on pegs and a wooden play kitchen stands on one side.
One by one, temporary residents slip in to share how they have come to be here. Ora, wearing a velvet tuxedo floor-length coat and white button down, is steely when required, jumps to jokes for light relief, sings to make small children smile and, at times, dabs the tears from her eyes. ‘You’re a fighter — the definition of bravery,’ she says to one woman. ‘I love you,’ she replies. ‘Thank you for coming here and recognising us.’ It was an emotional but uplifting three hours, and Ora spoke with sincerity. Most asked her for a selfie to remember the moment.
I see her again a fortnight later, and it is a very different tale. She is draped over a stool, wearing a ShuShu/Tong ribbon cardigan and lace bra posing for this week’s ES Magazine cover shoot. Unfazed by the on-set hoo-ha, she recalls the significance of her visit. ‘All three women I met were so different, but they felt like they could hope again now. It can kill someone inside if you don’t have hope,’ she says.
Her takeaway was the galvanised determination of the mothers she met. They reminded Ora of her own parents, who emigrated from her birthplace of Kosovo to London in 1991 to flee persecution. She sits back in one of the photo studio’s plastic kitchen chairs and takes a swig of her chicken broth before explaining the troubles of her childhood. ‘I had to fight a lot, even in school, to not be judged, be taken seriously and not looked at as someone different to everybody else,’ she says. ‘I have been really vocal over the years about the importance of everyone being given a chance.’
It is for this reason she wants the negative rhetoric surrounding immigration to the UK to come to a halt. ‘I’m not a politician, but what I can do is just try and shine a light,’ she says. ‘There’s a misunderstanding of people who just come to this country to try and get a better life.’ She offers herself as a prime example: ‘Someone who made use of the incredible education and opportunities that come with moving here. Because of that, I’m doing my dream job and I’m super f***ing proud of it — I don’t even want to think about what it could have been like.’
“I wanted to keep my wedding to myself for as long as I could”
Interest in Ora’s life has intensified considerably since her relationship with the director of Jojo Rabbit and the recent Thor franchise became public in 2021. In August last year they married in a secret, small ceremony in Los Angeles and shared the news (but more importantly, pictures, via Vogue) this past January.
‘I’m off the market,’ she cooed to listeners of Heart Radio; a closing chapter of her love life that has counted extremely high-profile exes Calvin Harris, A$AP Rocky, Travis Barker and Andrew Garfield. ‘I wanted to keep [the wedding] to myself for as long as I could,’ she says. ‘I’ve been in the public eye for a while now, and I’ve always given everything I’m part of to the public. It felt nice to have something that was a secret for a bit.’ There were only eight guests — not an entirely popular decision. ‘A lot of my friends were like, “Oh my God we’ve missed it.” I just told them we will figure something out. It felt chill — because my life is not chill,’ she says.
She is embracing the big settle down. ‘Nothing much has changed in my life, I now just feel I’ve got company,’ she says. ‘[It was strange] going from all this noise, which is what my life is, to dead silence when I lived alone.’ Having grown up in west London, ‘Ladbroke Grove, Portobello, Notting Hill — I was always there’, she and Waititi now live in a Grade II-listed Primrose Hill pad, not to mention the £5 million New Zealand mansion they added to the property portfolio this year.
‘With Taika being from there, it’s very important for the children to have a home,’ she says of her husband’s two daughters with his former wife, Chelsea Winstanley. She is open to having her own children, but says ‘it happens when it happens. I just believe in the universe.’ And the globe-trotting trips to the South Pacific are a welcome break from London life. ‘The vibe is amazing, it’s like being on Mars,’ she says. ‘It’s so fresh, the landscape there is amazing and I’m left alone a little bit more. The people are truly chill, maybe because there aren’t so many of them.’
It’s lucky, because in 2024 Ora is planning to be there far more. ‘Taika likes to shoot out there a lot, we will be shooting something next year,’ she says. So she’s set to star in one of his films? ‘I may or may not be working closely with my partner, but we will leave that there,’ she smirks. ‘Acting is a big priority for me next year. I’ll be doing a lot more.’
“There are artists who came out the same time as me. I don’t know where they are now”
Ora has played Mia Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise (2015 - 2018), Dodger in the Sky adaptation of Twist (2021) and worked alongside Carrie Fisher in 2023’s Wonderwell. Her next silver screen sojourn will be as Queen of Hearts in Disney+’s Descendants: The Rise of Red, ‘that’s all coming out next year, which is so exciting’.
There is certainly no denying Ora’s frankly relentless work ethic. The night before this interview she was singing into the early hours at Soho Farmhouse, in the Cotswolds, and not to bed before 3am (‘the difference between a hangover in your 20s and 30s is traumatising,’ she says. See: chicken broth). The following week she had a two-day trip to LA before a flight back to perform at the Jingle Bell Ball. A frantic end to a hectic year that has seen her coaching on The Voice Australia, judging on ITV’s Masked Singer, and returning to music after signing with label BMG in 2022, with her third album, You & I, released in July.
She calls herself a grafter. ‘I’m really proud of that. It’s because I’ve seen my mum work so hard. It’s all I know,’ she says. ‘I want to push myself.’ Regular therapy keeps her in check. ‘I have a very fast-paced life and I need to have some help putting things into perspective,’ she says. ‘I started when I was about 25 and do it all the time: if not twice a week you have to at least do it once,’ she says. ‘I definitely have ups and downs.’
Last year marked a decade since her big break as the vocalist on DJ Fresh’s No1 single ‘Hot Right Now’. She puts her longevity down to honesty. ‘I’ve always been so transparent,’ she says. ‘Whether that’s led me down bad paths, at the end of the day people feel like they know me. Mistakes are not mistakes, and I am really proud of what I have done up to this point. It’s always been me.’
But 2020 saw a wobble: Ora was caught breaking Covid rules by hosting a 30th birthday party during lockdown. She was fined £10,000, has since apologised but certainly bounced back. ‘The only way to survive in my business is being true to who you are — how long are you going to pretend? You’ll get tired at some point. You will be caught doing something in a restaurant,’ she says. ‘That’s why I’ve lasted this long. There are [other artists] who came out at the same time as me — I don’t know where they are now.’
“I’m really proud of being a grafter. It’s all I know”
One constant for Ora is a battering of objectifying headlines and social media trolls. She made a pact with herself in 2018 not to read any of it. ‘I’ve been doing this for long enough now, I make a real effort not to look. I used to,’ she says. ‘It was so unhealthy for me. It stopped my creativity and made me insecure and uncomfortable in the studio. So far it’s been doing me well. I go to bed happy.’
None of it has put her off an extreme fashion look — sheer ‘naked dresses’ are a trusted ally. ‘I feel like if I’ve got it — why not? Before I know it I’m going to be old and grey, hugging the picture at night,’ she says. December alone has seen her photographed in a see-through black mesh David Koma gown complete with statement neckline that came over her nose (‘it was so tight, I didn’t drink anything all night’), while at the Fashion Awards she wore a backless gown ‘so naked at the back, to the point you might see my crack’ with a chrome, prosthetic spine growing from her skin — the work of make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench. ‘I just commit. I think people think it’s super bizarre,’ she laughs. ‘I always try to do the most, at all times. Otherwise what’s the point?’
Looking like alien spawn aside, her Fashion Awards gown hit headlines because unlike Gwyneth Paltrow, who wore Valentino, or Amal Clooney, who opted for Versace, on the night Ora’s was from Primark. It follows her September collaboration with the fast fashion retailer that was received to mixed reviews regarding the company’s policy on sustainability and worker’s rights. She thinks those who turn up their noses are classist. ‘Primark was all I knew growing up in west London not having a lot. I think it’s truly a huge part of UK DNA. Regardless of what you think, it’s always delivered for those that don’t have the opportunity to get some things,’ she says.
This Christmas, however, she’s going for an all-red, ribboned look by New York designer Sandy Liang. It has been planned since November, which, she admits, ‘is crazy’. ‘But I love Christmas. Food, TV, naps and food again,’ she says. This year will be the first that she spends with Waititi in New Zealand — but she can counter the southern hemisphere sunshine by blasting the festive hits.
So, shag, marry, kill: Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande and Michael Bublé? ‘I love Mariah, so I’ll marry her,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to start a rumour that Rita Ora wants to have sex with Ariana Grande, but I would shag her. Oh, but I really don’t want to kill Michael Bublé, he’s so sweet.’ That is the task at hand, I press. ‘Okay, and I will kill Bublé.’ Say what you want about Rita Ora, but she will always get the job done.
To donate to the Evening Standard’s Winter Survival Appeal, visit comicrelief.com
Photographer: Tung Walsh
Stylist: Jessica Skeete-Cross
Make Up: Terry Barber at David Artists using MAC
Hair stylist: Karla Q Leon at Saint Luke Artists using Living Proof
Set design: Lee Flude
Producer: Katie de Toney
Photographer’s assistant: Ollie Webb
Stylist assistant: Benjamin Carnall
Make up assistant: Helyana Shelton
