TV presenter, Oscar nominee, number one artist, actress, tabloid fodder… how does Rita Ora fit it all in?
Rita Ora isn’t answering her doorbell.
I’ve been standing outside her house in Beverly Hills for 20 minutes now, pressing the buzzer. But so far, nothing.
The house is situated at the top of a steep driveway and guarded by an electric gate like the rest of the vast homes on this street belonging to the mega-rich, so I can’t even bang on the door or peek through a window.
I try the buzzer again. No reply. Suddenly, a Land Rover pulls up in the drive next to me. It must be Rita. Wrong. The window rolls down to reveal a handsome guy in his twenties. “Are you here to deliver something?”
He looks puzzled when I explain I’m actually meant to be interviewing Rita. And that nobody is answering.
He tries to FaceTime her. When he, too, gets no response, he gets out of the car, launches himself over the gate and disappears up the path.
A few minutes later he reappears, opens the gate, apologises and beckons for me to follow him up the garden path to a bungalow. Rita is standing in the doorway with a big smile on her face. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I thought we were meeting at 1.30pm.” She points at the guy who let me in. “This is my friend Faisal. We’re working on tracks together.”
She’s quite a vision. Her peroxide hair is scraped back into a ponytail, and she’s wearing vintage sunglasses with pink lenses, a black ribbon round her neck and a skimpy Solid & Striped grey swimsuit. I was admiring it on her Instagram feed days earlier.
“Excuse this,” she says, pointing to her hair. It’s apparently a mess from wearing extensions while filming Fifty Shades. “I’m having it done later.”
This story is from the September 2016 edition of Cosmopolitan UK.
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This story is from the September 2016 edition of Cosmopolitan UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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