Over the weekend, Rita Ora dropped her new single “Girls”, ft. Bebe Rexha, Cardi B and Charli XCX.
Talk about a strong group of girls to make an anthem right? Well… it could have been.
The first problem was the fact that Rita has admitted to gaining inspo from Katy Perry’s 2008 song “I Kissed a Girl”, which we all know is controversial AF.
However fans, the LGBTQ community and now Hayley Kiyoko (whose fans call her ‘lesbian Jesus’) have completely slammed the song for being tone-deaf.
“It’s important for us artists to use our platforms to move the cultural needle forward, not backwards. There is a new song that came out today featuring a handful of well-known pop artists that me overwhelmed with thoughts. I literally have a knot in my stomach right now. To be clear, I fully support other artists who freely express themselves and applaud male and female artists who are opening up more and more about their sexual identities. But every so often there come certain songs with messaging that is just downright tone-deaf, which does more harm than good for the LGBTQ+ community. A song like this just fuels the male gaze while marginalizing the idea of women loving women. I know this wasn’t the intention of the artists on the song, but it’s the lack of consideration behind these lyrics that really get me.”
She talks about how the line in the song that says drinking wine is harmful. “I don’t need to drink wine to kiss girls; I’ve loved women my entire life. This type of message is dangerous because it completely belittles and invalidates the very pure feelings of an entire community. I feel I have a responsibility to protect that whenever possible. We can and should do better.”
We feel you honey.
In an interview with People, Rita was asked about her own sexuality, as many fans believe this is her coming out as bisexual song. “I knew people were going to look into it like that. I definitely said it because I can — and it was one of those things where, if I was 50/50…I’m not saying I’m ’70/30.’ … ‘I’m 50/50, and I’m not gonna hide it.’ I’m not hiding what I am, who I am, if I wanna do this, if I wanna do that. That’s just how it’s gonna be.”
There have also been numerous times that Rita has skirted around the question.
“If people look at it like that, it’s very narrow-minded, and I don’t think that’s what this record is. I don’t think that that even matters.”
She did it again in an interview, with Billboard, she says, “It’s not actually that deep. It really is just about that. It’s a free message, and for me, really fun. It’s just a fun record.”
While she is completely entitled to express her sexuality in any way she wants, fans haven’t responded well to the song and demand that she takes it all a bit more seriously.
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