Long before she bounded onto the music scene with Hot Right Now, Rita Ora had all but signed up to sing for Great Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009.

And lucky for us, her audition for the BBC show Eurovision: Your Country Needs You!, is still on YouTube so you can see a young Ora perform.

In the video, stunning pop star-ready Rita, then 18, performs Oleta Adams’ hit Get Here and quite clearly impressed the judges, including music supremo Andrew Lloyd Webber.


The video then cuts to Rita nervously waiting outside the audition room as the judges deliberated.

But while Rita was offered the chance to sing for Great Britain in the contest, she quit the competition and now says she’s glad she didn’t say yes.



‘Right from the start I was, like, “What am I doing here?” I did my song and walked out. No-one knew what to do. They started looking for me, calling my agent,’ Rita has since recalled.

And then seemingly taking a veiled dig at Sugababe Jade Ewen, who went on to perform Lloyd Webber’s song It’s My Time at the Moscow Eurovision that year, she added: ‘Imagine if I’d stayed! It would probably have been all over for me. At best, I’d be a contestant on that diving show…? Splash! Yeah, Splash! I love that show.’

Suffice to say, Jade was a contestant in Splash in 2013.

That same year, Jade tweeted: ‘Easy to mock when you are enjoying success. Eurovision and Splash? Proud of both. Some manage to sleep their way to success some have morals.’

OUCHIE.

Rita first entered the music scene in 2012 with DJ Fresh’s Hot Right now:

And her first solo single was mega-hit R.I.P. ft Tinie Tempah:

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