Rita Ora has revealed how Beyonce has always been her ‘protector’ as she discussed being hit by speculation that she was ‘Becky with the good hair’.
Beyonce’s smash hit 2016 album Lemonade featured poignant lyrics about cheating and she sang about the mysterious ‘Becky with the good hair’ in her track Sorry.
Fans widely speculated it referred to alleged infidelity by Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z with a woman called ‘Becky’, and theories began circulating online about her identity.
Rita, 34, found herself at the centre of the rumours as she was wrongly accused of having an affair with Jay-Z, with the singer forced to hit back and deny the claims.
Now, Rita – who was represented by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label at the time – revealed she was so upset by the claims because Beyonce has always been her ‘protector’.
Speaking on Davina McCall‘s Begin Again podcast, Rita explained: ‘Behind closed doors, [Beyonce] is literally my fairy godmother, she was my protector – that’s what’s insane because there was nothing but love.
Rita Ora opened up about her ‘tough’ years as a teenager as her world ‘crumbled’ after her mother Vera was diagnosed with breast cancer
Beyonce’s smash hit 2016 album Lemonade featured poignant lyrics about cheating and she sang about the mysterious ‘Becky with the good hair’ in her track Sorry
‘And, you know, again, being signed to Jay-Z, her husband, she being my biggest inspiration, she came to my first show in New York at The Box and I sang Say My Name in front of Beyonce when I was 21.’
Rita admitted she was ‘genuinely’ upset and ‘confused’ by the storm because Beyonce is a ‘big sister’ who has always ‘looked after’ her in the industry.
The For You hitmaker revealed she still sees Beyonce often to this day as she doubled down on her denial that she was ‘Becky’.
‘It wasn’t real,’ Rita insisted, before jokingly adding: ‘I wish I had good hair!’
‘None of that was real. That was the first time I experienced what it means to be in a messy situation, I guess,’ she added.
Rita – who has been married to Taika Waititi since 2022 – firmly put the rumours to bed by taking a selfie with Beyonce at the 2016 Met Gala.
‘Then it was gone,’ she added. ‘Because there was never anything there in the first place.’
It is not the first time that Rita has addressed the ‘Becky with the good hair’ storm as she shut down the speculation on Louis Theroux’s podcast in 2022.
Fans widely speculated it referred to alleged infidelity by Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z (both pictured in December) with a woman called ‘Becky’, and theories began circulating online
Rita became at the centre of the speculation when she posted a photograph of Snapchat in April 2016 of herself wearing a lemon bra while wearing an initial necklace, which fans thought was the letter J.
Though fans were convinced it was a response to the controversial song lyric, Rita insisted: ‘Oh my God, it literally was a coincidence.’
‘I didn’t even think about it, I swear,’ she told Louis. ‘And it wasn’t a J, it was an R. They flipped it round and then it looked like a J.’
She also addressed another famous image which saw her wearing a semi-sheer bra from her Tenezis collaboration with specially-placed lemons.
She said of the lemon-inspired shoot: ‘No, it had nothing [to do with it]. No, that was my own design with an underwear company called Tezenis that I was working with.
‘This is what I mean, man – a pinch of salt – you’ve got to take things with a pinch of salt. And that’s what’s insane.’
Rita said that her ‘good friend’ Katy Perry gave her a ‘hilarious badge that said ‘Not Becky”’.
On Beyonce’s critically-acclaimed album Lemonade, which won her a pair of Grammy victories, Beyonce made multiple allusions to Jay-Z allegedly cheating on her.
Sorry included the lyrics: ‘You only want me when I’m not there/You better call Becky with the good hair.’
Many famous names were caught up in the rumours surrounding ‘Becky’s’ identity including fashion designer Rachel Roy, the ex-wife of Jay-Z’s one-time business associate Damon Dash – who also denied the claims.
Beyonce’s co-writer Diana Gordon – formerly known by the stage name Wynter Gordon – clarified that ‘Becky’ doesn’t actually refer to any one person in particular.
She said of the reaction: ‘I was like, ‘What day in age from that lyric do you get all of this information?” Is it really telling you all that much, accusing people?’
Beyonce’s mother Tina Knowles also clarified that it wasn’t referring to one specific person but discussing marriage in general.
‘It could be about anyone’s marriage,’ she shared at the time.
‘I think that everybody at one time or another has been betrayed and lied to and it’s about the pain and it’s about the healing process and it’s about, ”How do you get past that and move on”.’
