In a new interview, the 'You and I' singer is overwhelmed with emotion as she discusses the 'mistakes being made' in the early years after she shot to stardom.
- Jul 19, 2023
AceShowbiz - Rita Ora felt "broken" after she shot to fame. The 32-year-old pop star - who has previously talked about suffering panic attacks since she was a teenager - got emotional as she recalled her career disasters and nearly losing it all.
"I was on a rollercoaster, living my dream but then when I would wake up it'd be like silent and it wouldn't feel nice. There was a sense of having to work to prove myself, I was a naive young dreamer and that's exactly what you should be at that age," she said behind tears when speaking on Steven Bartlett's "Diary of a CEO" podcast.
The "Praising You" hitmaker - who rose to prominence in 2012 when she featured on DJ Fresh's chart-topper "Hot Right Now" - struggled with the pressure to have constant hits. Asked about what went wrong, she said, "Certain things not positioning chart wise how you wanted or making decisions that may have not been right. Mistakes being made."
The "Anywhere" singer felt "so fearful" of having her every move being watched and judged. Rita continued, "I feel broken, it makes me feel like everything I've done is about to disappear and takes me back to the fear of losing everything. When the world is looking at you, you just break down, you just get so fearful."
However, she is inspired by the strength and endurance of her parents, psychiatrist mother, Vera, and pub owner father, Besnik, who fled to London from Kosovo due to persecution of Albanians initiated with the disintegration of Yugoslavia when Rita was a baby in 1991, to keep pushing forward.
She added, "All I think about is my mum and dad because they've worked so hard to get me to this point, I have my whole family to keep afloat. You can't help but always blame yourself for everything, the only way forward is to keep moving forward."
"I've always tried to be myself and be very genuine and I've never changed who I am, I don't always get it right but who does? But I feel more human, I'm just a human at the end of the day."
Her first panic attack was when she was just 15, when her mother found out she had breast cancer, and she mistook it for asthma. Rita keeps panic attacks at bay with regular therapy sessions, which she doesn't think she "could function without."
Rita - who is married to director Taika Waititi - has just released her third studio album, "You and I", which touches on the subject of sinking "really low" and losing her "confidence" to make music before learning the art of self-love and being given a boost by her spouse and loved ones.
She said of the follow-up to 2018's "Phoenix", "I spent such a long time fighting to be heard over the course of my experience being in the industry, that I guess I lost a lot of confidence and a lot of hope, fell really low. And I guess when you're at your lowest point, you can make a choice. You either kind of get back up and keep going, or you just let it consume you. And I did that. I got up."
"This album really means a lot to me. It's like my diary of the last few years, it's my sound and it just feels so true to me and who I am today. I think this record means something different for everyone, but from my perspective, it's about praising your loved ones and really celebrating those relationships."
