This week, a rapper and reality show star gave us Gossip Christmas (or as I like to call it, Receipts Week), cracking the façade of one of the most important and astute players in the game. All the games.
The last story that garnered this much social media excitement and debate was #beckywiththegoodhair. We were all over #beckywiththegoodhair, which fueled a debate about who “Becky” is and what “Becky” means in a larger cultural conversation. Kathleen just wrote about that earlier today.
You know who showed up for #beckywiththegoodhair? Rita Ora. (“Who?” – Jay-Z.) I’ll forgive if you don’t know or care who Rita Ora is – in fact, I’d be a little concerned if you were a Rita Ora stan. But after Lemonade broke, she tried to insert herself into the story with a lemon bra and “J” necklace. Rita wanted so much to be part of that “narrative”, even though her most notable connection to Jay is that she had to sue Roc Nation because they forgot about her.
She tried to claim Becky, just so she could then turn around and deny she was THE Becky. It was probably the most thrilling days of her life/Google notifications. Since then she’s been… around. Rita Ora is always around, doing what we don’t exactly know.
This week, the story is that she had a sleepover at Chris Martin’s hotel in New York. She was spotted by paps in the morning, leaving in the same outfit she was in the night before.
OK, so let’s unpack this. She went to an afterparty, and possibly went home with someone (or stayed up partying all night, or at least until the sun came up). And of course Chris Martin, being the most famous member of the band, is going to get that headline. It’s exactly the headline she wants.
But what headline does Chris want, especially if he’s still in a relationship with Annabelle Wallis? As of two weeks ago, she was posting photos from Coldplay concerts and took a selfie in a dress she wore to Tim Crompton’s wedding (Tim and Chris are very good friends). Lainey wrote about that a couple months ago.
The point is, as of two weeks ago, they were still together. But a lot can change in two weeks, and maybe they’ve broken up or maybe they haven’t. She hasn’t taken down any of her Coldplay photos, but not everyone is as reactive as Taylor and DJ Four Names.
The gossip angle with Annabelle and Chris is one thing, but Rita’s TRY here is another. She wants people to think she spent the night with Chris Martin when really she could have been with one of his bandmates, or someone from the crew, another musician on the tour, or no one. I wouldn’t put it past her to wait in the lobby until she knew she could get a headline out of it. Because if you’ve ever seen Rita Ora photos, she’s always getting in and out of black sedans. So why take a morning stroll RIGHT PAST the paps outside of a hotel?
It’s because visibility is key for someone like Rita, not subtlety. She needs to make a lot of noise to generate interest (and it’s mostly from the UK tabloids). Since no one can name a Rita Ora song, visuals are key. Last night she posted a shot to Instagram of her dressed head-to-toe in the hue of one of Coldplay’s most famous songs, Yellow. She is the opposite of cryptic. In fact, she’s a literal dresser. Initial necklaces, Beyhive-baiting bras, t-shirts with “cryptic messages” – her wardrobe is a sartorial manifestation of the TRY.
Why did she and Calvin Harris ever break up?
Attached - Rita out in New York yesterday in yellow and again today.
