Rita Ora has a problem: she seems to have forgotten that she’s a heavyweight bop-making champ.
I ask if “Radioactive”, the explosive final single from her debut album Ora, which circled the UK top 20 in 2013, will be on her upcoming World Pride Music Festival set in Washington, D.C. “I forgot about that song! I need to write it down,” she yells, before whacking out a notebook and pen. “What would be your dream setlist? ‘Cos that would actually help me a lot.”
Erm, “Poison”? “OK, wow! I did not expect that,” she replies, head down, scribbling away. “Bang Bang?” “Ah!” She offers up some suggestions: “What about ‘I Will Never Let you Down’? What about ‘Let You Love Me?’”
OK, she’s bragging at this point, but she should. At just 34, Rita Ora has a museum’s-worth of polished dance-pop; far more than even most pop loyalists would give her credit for. That’s probably because she’s only released three albums since her debut single, “Hot Right Now” with DJ Fresh, topped the UK charts in 2012. It’s not many for someone 13 years into their career, but she’s a busy woman: she’s squeezed her music career alongside years of TV judging (The Masked Singer; The Voice) fashion collections (Adidas; Primark) and an array of acting jobs (50 Shades; Descendants; Tin Soldier).
A fourth album is on the horizon. “Oh yeah, now we’re done. We’re like, literally so done. But it’s now just how I’m gonna present [it] to the world,” she beams over Zoom from Los Angeles, fresh-faced, her hair pulled back into a tight bun.
Work on album four began last September with a moodboard. “I had words [like] simple, intentional, direct, sexy, unapologetic, flamboyant but not arrogant, not ignorant, something that feels natural and organic, and confident, pure, real, heartbroken – not that I have any (Ora is married to filmmaker Taika Waititi) – but just those heart-wrenching… and disappointing moments, just celebrating everything in one.”
If it sounds a little like the blueprint of Charli XCX’s zeitgeist-capturing 2024 record Brat, it’s because it sort of is. Ora sounds deeply inspired by her former collaborator (the pair worked together on 2014’s “Doing It” and Ora’s controversial bisexual anthem “Girls”), and how her last record captured the zeitgeist. “That was like a marketing genius plan, you know?” she gushes. Her own album ethos clicked in January time. “I want everyone to feel like they’re in a complete whirlwind of Rita world and what that looks like visually,” she says. She won’t reveal the title today, but it “really explains the world” the record exists in.
Or rather, the beach it might exist on. Ora’s just dropped “Heat”, a sweat-soaked song-of-the-summer contender, and the album’s second single after last year’s “Ask & You Shall Receive”. It’s co-written coincidentally by XCX’s pal and the king of big, gay, sweaty summer bangers Troye Sivan and his writing partner, Leland.
“I felt like I wanted to get back into my sexy girl era,” she says coquettishly – the type of sexy girl who only owns bikinis, doesn’t leave the sun lounger for ten days straight, and ogles at shirtless daddies, if the song’s sizzling music video is anything to go by. Her last album, 2023’s formulaic You & I, “was very heart-driven and heart-wrenching. It was all about love. It was all about my relationship. I was really inspired by my marriage. I still love my husband,” she laughs, “but it’s about me now and how I’m feeling and being in my skin and feeling carefree and sexy.” Waititi sometimes jokes that she’s “going back to sexy again”. “I’m like, ‘I’ve always been sexy! What are you talking about?’” she bellows. “I like that he’s so supportive as well of me celebrating my womanhood.”
Sivan was an “easy” collaborator on “Heat”, she says. “I love that about Troye. He was like ‘Yes, queen! Whatever you want, f**k yeah, let’s go.’ Everything was a celebration and I think he just wanted to help me make the best record I can for myself, and that’s what we did.”
The “Rush” singer will also be performing at World Pride this weekend, but his and Ora’s flights will practically glide past each other over the Atlantic, so don’t expect a surprise on-stage performance. “That doesn’t mean to say there’s nothing coming,” she teases. “It just might have to be not so live on the stage, but I’m sure we’re going to make it work somehow.”
Rita Ora is a mainstay at Pride festivals the world over. She talks earnestly of her time among the LGBTQ+ community, of which she’s a part of: in 2018, she revealed that she’d previously had relationships with women. “It’s everything to me. I always make time for Pride,” she says. Ora moved to London aged one with her psychiatrist mother, businessman father and older sister, fleeing political upheaval in her homeland (now the country of Kosovo). In the capital, she fell among a clan of LGBTQ+ friends; at her first rave, she was accosted by drag queens who gave her free reign with their heels and hair. “I felt amazing. I was like, ‘This is it. I want to be a performer.’ Like, those moments – you don’t forget that sh*t, you know?”
If she’s honest, she thinks having gay fans has helped keep her career afloat. “They’ve kept me in the mix. [Artists] that came out when I came out, they’re not really around as much.” Don’t get her wrong, her work ethic – “I also work my ass off” – has kept her at the forefront of the entertainment industry too, but it’s her fans who have stuck with her through the highest highs (7.5 billion Spotify streams, four UK number one singles) and lowest lows (having to apologise for breaking Covid-19 lockdown regulations).
“My fans, I hope, know that I’m so transparent and I’ve always been honest with them and yeah I’ve made mistakes publicly, and I do things and I make things I’m really proud of,” she says. “I’m happy that I’ve done it with a community that has always supported me, and been like, ‘Well you’ve always been honest and true to who you are’ and that’s what the LGBTQIA+ community is.”
Ora knows that World Pride this year is a little bit more than a party. The UK Supreme Court’s recent ruling that the term “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 relates to biological sex, thus excluding trans women, is weighing heavy. In the US, where she’s performing, Donald Trump’s administration is going overboard in its policies targeting trans people, particularly trans youth. Her face, which has been permanently bright and smiley, becomes instantly solemn when I bring it up. “It’s heartbreaking,” she says, twice. “It makes me so angry. I get so f**king angry.” She’s watched in admiration at stars like Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer, and seen the “sacrifices a person has to make to just be themselves”. Her voice gets gravelly. “It is beyond any words I can comprehend right now,” she continues. “It literally brings me to tears and makes me so angry”.
She hopes revellers will still be able to put the Pride in World Pride. “I promise when you come to a Rita show you’ll feel accepted and safe and free to be who you want to be with no judgement.”
Strangely, Ora has had to contend with her own funny kind of fears around being accepted at shows recently, albeit for a far different reason. Over spring, she opened for pop goddess and her friend, Kylie Minogue, on the US leg of her Tension Tour. “I haven’t opened up for somebody in a really long time and this isn’t somebody – she’s an icon, you know?” Despite her global fame, and to my surprise, Ora was unsure if Kylie’s fans would be bothered about her. “I don’t have an ego. I have no pride. I just want to connect with people and sing my music to people,” she says. And yet, “that crowd showed up for me an hour before their icon came out. I was just so overwhelmed with gratitude… I couldn’t believe it.”
Touring is like training as an athlete and Kylie is an Olympic gold medalist, Ora says, so there was no wild partying together (they did tuck into some of Kylie’s own brand, alcohol-free wine though, which is an incredibly pleasing image). “I wish I had more interesting stories,” she apologises. “We had lots of talks though – great, inspiring talks about music and the industry nowadays.”
Considering Kylie’s mammoth comeback single “Padam Padam” was originally offered to Ora, I’d have paid huge money to be privy to those chats. I wonder if Kylie is more of an “I Will Never Let You Down” or “Let You Love Me” kinda girl. Our time is coming to an end now, though. Rita Ora might be off to do a setlist re-think, and I’ve got to go listen to “Radioactive”.
“Heat” is out now. Rita Ora performs at World Pride Music Festival in Washington D.C. on 6 June.
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
The post Rita Ora teases Troye Sivan collab and says attacks on trans rights make her ‘so angry’ appeared first on PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news.