Rita Ora has a catalog of bops. From the chart-topping “Your Song” to cuts from her latest album, like “Let You Love Me,” the British pop queen has been making us dance for a few years now.
But some fans are doing more than just dancing: They’re recording covers of Ora’s songs and sharing them on YouTube. And their interpretations run the gamut from punchy rock to soft acoustic and even some more experimental genres. For our latest edition of “You Sang My Song,” we had Rita Ora stop by our offices and check out a few of these covers, and she loved them.
“That’s what music is about,” Ora said in between watching the covers. “It’s about having fun.”
Later she added, “I really am overwhelmed. It’s so nice to see people singing my songs. I feel like I’m doing something right. And I never want it to end and I can’t tell you how honored I am. It’s the biggest compliment in the world, so keep singing my songs, please.”
Ora first hit the music scene in 2012 with splashy hits like “How We Do (Party)” and “Poison.” She’s since established herself as a multihyphenate, with stakes in both music and fashion. Her last album, Phoenix, was released in November 2018 and reached number 11 on the U.K. albums chart.
“It’s about my decisions in life to get to 27,” Ora told British Vogue about the new album. “Some I regret—not regret, that’s not the right word—some I wish I did differently, and some I’m proud of. Like, ‘Your Song’ was written when I was with Ed [Sheeran] and we were moaning about all this depressing music, and we wanted to hear something that was like, ‘I don’t wanna hear sad songs anymore.'” Stream the album here.
Rita Moreno has a name for that voice inside her head that—even at 86, even as one of fifteen EGOTs, even as the woman who brought us such iconic characters as Anita in West Side Story and Lydia on Netflix’s One Day at a Time—tells her she’s not good enough: “I call her Rosita.”
“Certain parts of you, your fears and your love, never really die,” she says. “There are parts of me that are very young that live—the girl who was always sure that nobody liked her and that she wasn’t pretty enough. She’s the one who, still to this day, says things like, ‘Haha, I told you you couldn’t do it.'”
There was a time that Rosita overpowered Rita—a conflict that drove her to a suicide attempt in her youth, which she details in her 2013 memoir. She’s also caused moments of doubt, like when Moreno found herself out of work for years after winning an Oscar (an Oscar!) because every role sent her way played on a Latinx or brown stereotype she had no interest in perpetuating.
“The difference between then and now is that I tell [Rosita]: Go to your room!” (Therapy also helps, she says.)
PHOTO: Alamy Stock Photo
Moreno took home an Oscar for 1961’s ‘West Side Story’.
Moreno admits that “there are still times when I weep copious tears, when I feel I’ve been hurt by somebody or something.” It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it catches her by surprise. “I’ve been playing this role of a brave, secure woman for so long that I forgot I’m not really this—I know I’m brave, but I don’t know about secure.”
It’s hard to imagine Moreno not feeling secure. She’s dominated almost every medium: film, television, theater, even audiobooks. She’s the girl who left Juncos, her hometown in eastern Puerto Rico, with her mother at the age of five for New York City in the late 1930s (when she was still Rosita Dolores Alverio) and, over the next few decades, broke new ground for Latinx performers. She became la pionera, the pioneer.
But consider what happened after her most lauded achievement, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story in 1962. For nearly a decade, she didn’t have any significant acting credits, mainly because all the scripts sent her way were, as she’s described, “minor movies with gangs” and “Spanish spitfire[s]… [or] dusky maiden[s].” She held out for something better.
“It isn’t like I wasn’t very hurt,” Moreno says of this time. “I was so heartbroken when I got nothing but offers to do stuff like that again, on a lesser scale. It took me years to get over ese rechazo [rejection], it was just horrible. It broke my heart. But, Rita with a broken heart is still a person who keeps moving.”
And at times, Moreno had to accept those roles she scoffs at just to get by. “I do a lot of seminars with young people and a lot often ask me, ‘Well, why didn’t you just quit?’ I say to them, That means I don’t make any money, I can’t pay the rent…,” she says. “You stick to what you absolutely must do with the hope things will change. I did make a choice, but it was, I felt at the time, the only choice I could make. I didn’t do it for a noble cause—I would love to say it was noble, but I don’t think I was. I was a creature of my time.”
Still, perseverancia. Perseverance. That’s her motto, and it’s another word to describe her career. She persevered to get better roles. She persevered to quiet Rosita. And she persevered to feel like she had a place in Hollywood.
PHOTO: Shutterstock
PHOTO: Getty Images
PHOTO: Getty Images
For a long time, she thought the role that made her feel represented in her industry was Anita in West Side Story. Looking back, though, “there were things that were in that film that were not happy.” Now, the honor goes to Carnal Knowledge, from 1971. “For some wonderful reason, I played a woman of no particular nationality,” Moreno says. “That’s the only film I did where I played someone of no particular [background].” That, to her, is incredibly significant; it represents a moment she felt she was cast as Rita Moreno, actress, as opposed to Rita Moreno, Puerto Rican actress.
Those who have followed in her footsteps picked up on that difference. Rosie Perez highlights Carnal Knowledge as one of Moreno’s most noteworthy roles because it “had nothing to do her being Latin, [and] everything to do with her being a human being.” It’s indicative of her greater sacrifice, too. “[Moreno] broke down doors by not working for so long, by standing for her beliefs and morals and integrity and saying, I’m not just this one thing,” Perez says. “She paid a heavy price for us.”
Even now, Moreno thinks about what kind of scripts will come her way—especially since she currently stars as a Cuban grandmother on One Day at a Time. “I’ll be interested to see what else I get offered now and then,” she says. “Is it only going to be Latina from now on, because of Lydia? I would really not be happy about that.” It’s not that she doesn’t want to play Latinx roles. Rather, she wants the capital-i Industry, the people in charge, to understand that actors “should be able to play anybody” regardless of their background.
Moreno is proud of her identity, but it wasn’t always so clear. “For many, many years, I hated being Latina,” she says. “I was ashamed of it. I got bullied and treated very badly for a good part of my life [because of it]. That stayed with me for a very long time. It’s what drove me into therapy, eventually.”
Looking back, “I always believed that if I just simply persevered, that some day, somehow, some way, someone would say, ‘This person has talent and I’m going to help her,'” she says. “I come from a time [when] there were no mentors, certainly not for somebody like me. A Latina girl from Puerto Rico? There was nobody around. But you just have to pick yourself up, slap yourself on the face—figuratively and literally, if necessary—and understand that life is just not easy.”
“I made a decision when I was a little girl, when I couldn’t speak English and I was thrown into school: You can sink or you can swim,” Moreno continues. “I chose to swim. It’s part of my nature. I’m a very stubborn woman.”
PHOTO: Austin Hargrave
Moreno has dominated almost every medium—film, television, theater, even audiobooks—making her one of 15 EGOTs.
Stubbornness, perseverance…and a willingness to share her story to remind everyone: This is how I got here. It’s why “icon” feels like a word that just begins to scratch the surface of who Rita Moreno is.
But if you ask Perez what makes Moreno an icon, she’ll tell you, first and foremost, it’s her work. “It’s excellent. You could watch her over and over again, and you’re always wondering what her character is thinking,” Perez says. But it’s more than that; it’s how, throughout a long and often difficult career, Moreno has maintained her dignity. “She’s always walked in the room with her head held heigh and demanded respect in a quiet and classy way. That’s iconic.”
As for Moreno, she’s happy with the title. “I think it’s a fine thing to be an icon,” she says. “To the group of people who haven’t had much attention from anyone, who have had to struggle for an identity, I think it’s terrific. I do not reject that in any way.”
Rita Moreno stars in One Day at a Time, available to stream on Netflix. This profile is part of a full week honoring iconic women. For more, head here.
Photos: Art by Aimee Sy, Getty Images, Austin Hargrave.
Rita Ora, Cardi B, Charli XCX, and Bebe Rexha have joined forces for what might be the catchiest pop song of 2018. It’s called “Girls,” and, well, the subject matter is exactly what you think: girls. More specifically, girls wanting to kiss other girls.
“Sometimes I just wanna kiss girls, girls, girls/Red wine I just wanna kiss girls, girls, girls,” the four pop stars lament on the song’s glittery chorus. Don’t get it twisted, though; “Girls” isn’t commodifying female sexuality or playing into any lesbian chic stereotypes. It’s actually a celebration of bisexuality.
Look no further than some of the verses for proof. “I ain’t one-sided; I’m open minded. I’m 50/50 and I’m never gonna hide it,” Ora sings during her lines at the top of the tune. In an interview with People magazine, the singer confirmed that “Girls” is about embracing gender fluidity and loving whomever you want on your own terms.
“I think, obviously, the song is very impactful in its own way. It definitely has a point. For me, I always looked at this song as a real gender-fluid freedom record. I never looked at it as, ‘Only females can listen to it ‘or ‘Only males can listen to it.’ It’s for everybody,” Ora said. “It really represents freedom and the chance to be what you want to be—and there being no judgment and just living your life as you want to live it. That’s what this song represents to me every time I hear it.”
Check out “Girls” for yourself, below:
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Slowly but surely, queer artists and themes are making their way into pop music. Halsey and Lauren Jauregui certainly made strides in this space last year with “Strangers,” a haunting electronic song that unabashedly used female-female pronouns. Meanwhile, Troye Sivan’s euphoric “My My My!” is already a strong contender for song of the summer. “Girls,” though, might be the first time four high-profile singers have banded together with an unabashedly queer message. That should (hopefully) move the dial in a huge way.
Rita Ora isn’t here for red carpet gowns or worrying about her hair—at least when it came to the MTV European Movie Awards on Sunday. The singer, who was hosting the event, hit up the red carpet wearing a (very soft-looking) dressing gown and a towel artfully turbaned on her head.
Of course, it wasn’t an actual bathrobe, despite outward appearances. And all outward appearances did point to the opulent, massive-bell-sleeved hotel robes that are the stuff of our five-star dreams. In a case of art imitates life, the dressing gown is actually from the Spring/Summer ’18 collection of Palomo Spain, an androgynous menswear line you might just remember from the ruffled gown that Beyoncé wore in the first photoshoot with her newborn twins.
Beyond the robe and turban, of major note were the actual pounds of diamonds Ora must have been wearing that were dangling from her ears and around her neck, which we have definitely never worn in the bath (but probably would just to say we did, if we’re being honest).
Ora definitely had a glam squad going in the beauty department, too: Her skin is absolutely glowing, and her eyes are lined in smoky, coppery browns and set off with some magnificent lashes. The look was capped off with her queenly pose on the red carpet: a leg peeking, Jolie-style, out of the dressing gown; a casual hand in her pocket; and the other perched in the air, just waiting for a glass of wine and a sheet mask to be Photoshopped into it.
PHOTO: Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Aaaaand here’s proof it’s not an actual robe:
Twitter had some sassy thoughts about the look, as it often does.
Luckily Ora’s not above taking a little teasing: In a pre-recorded clip of her heading to the event, she’s seen getting into the car in the outfit. The driver turns around to say, “Jesus, you could have made an effort; it’s the EMAs!” Her response? “But it’s designer.”
