Rita Ora awkwardly gets her husband Taika Waititi's ethnicity completely wrong on TV
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Taika Waititi, US News, Music
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Taika Waititi, US News, Music
Rita Ora might not be the best person to play a game of Mr and Mrs with, because she managed to get her husband's ethnicity completely wrong when speaking about him on TV.
Ora wasn't even being pushed for an answer about where her husband Taika Waititi is from - she volunteered the information, but still didn't get it right.
The unfortunate blunder went down on The Voice Australia, where Ora is a judge alongside Jessica Mauboy, Guy Sebastian and Jason Derulo. You can watch it unfold below:
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During a recent episode of the singing show, contestant Marley Sola wowed the judges with a rendition of Stevie Wonder's 'Ribbon in the Sky', prompting them to ask about his musical background.
Sola explained he grew up singing in a Sāmoan church and is part Sāmoan, prompting Derulo to show off some of his Sāmoan tattoos.
Ora then got involved in the discussion, saying: "I'm married to half a Sāmoan man, so..."
Now, to be clear, Ora is married to Waititi, and has been for one whole year.
Also, he's a whole man, not half a man.
Anyway, I'm sure the husband and wife have had a lot of opportunities to talk about their families, heritage and general lives during their time as a couple, so I'm sure Ora knows her husband very well.
That being said... he isn't Sāmoan.
Waititi is actually Māori; one of the indigenous people of Aotearoa, which is the Māori-language name for New Zealand.
The filmmaker has spoken at length about his heritage in the past, particularly about Māori representation in cinema, so The Voice Australia viewers were understandably confused when Ora referred to him as being Sāmoan.
One baffled person commented: "He spent his whole career telling innovative Māori stories, and advocating for native voices and storytelling on the big screen. And his wife doesn't even know he's Māori. Did they even have a conversation before getting married?!"
Another wrote: "Did Rita Ora really say that her husband is half samoan? That's... embarrassing."
In 2019, Waititi opened up on why 'normal' Indigenous representation in film matters. He told CBC Radio's Rosanna Deerchild: "We've been represented in the past as always through a white lens.
"We're the Native presence in films that talk to trees, and we're smudging all the time, and we're riding whales, and we're talking to the ghosts of our ancestors — which, sure, maybe for a few of us ... I don't. I'm just a normal dude."
He continued: "I like it when our experience is presented in a way that feels normal. It's more relatable to audiences."
UNILAD has contacted Rita Ora's representatives for a comment.