Rita Ora recalls ‘very awkward’ moment with Madonna

Rita Ora has recalled the “very awkward” moment Madonna made her kneel on the floor.

Ora, 30, described meeting the Queen of Pop earlier in career, calling the singer “one of the biggest idols of all time”.

Ora said she was working on a campaign for Madonna’s clothing line when they met and shared an “unbelievable” moment.

During a virtual appearance on US TV, she said: “I had an amazing moment with her, very awkward but also very unbelievable. She really just made me find my light and by doing that we had to kneel on the floor.

“And I thought it was Like A Prayer in real life that was happening to me. I mean I had to go and breathe in the bathroom. This was earlier in my career. I was doing a campaign for her clothing line and so then she came to meet me and I loved it and I just couldn’t breathe.

“And then she was like ‘this is not my light, let’s get down’. I thought, ‘what? What’s happening?’ And so we did.”

Ora is in Australia, where she is starring as a judge on The Voice alongside Keith Urban, Guy Sebastian and Jessica Mauboy.

Ora, who apologised last year for breaking lockdown rules to hold a birthday party in London, said being Down Under is “amazing”.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “And it’s a blessing to be out here and just be working with everything going on, so I feel very lucky.”

Ora released the EP Bang last month and performed one of the tracks at the Sydney Opera House on The Tonight Show.

She told Jimmy Fallon about making music during lockdown. She said: “It’s so, so strange creating in this time and I think that’s a lot for a lot of people to handle and try and figure out what they want to do.

“And so for me this is a product of isolation. And I mean that in the most free, freeing way. I wanted to do a project that felt there was no pressure, that a bunch of my mates really can just jump on, get together. We did it actually all virtually, a bit like this interview.”