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Rita Ora and Taika Waititi
“She proposed to me, and I said yes instantly,” the director told Vogue in August 2023, exactly one year after the pair tied the knot.
Waititi noted that the pop star proposed on a vacation in Palm Springs after one year of dating.
Ora offered more details on the proposal during a June 2025 appearance on the “Begin Again” podcast, revealing that she got wedding bands made in secret in order to surprise her husband-to-be.
“I didn’t want [the rings] to be too flashy,” she recalled. “I got bands made that have something really personal [inscribed on] them inside, that only we know about. I just did the whole thing!”
The couple were in Los Angeles at the time, so Ora rented out a “really nice, fancy” hotel room in Palm Springs that she filled up with heart-shaped “balloons and cake.”
“I’m basically doing what I would have wanted,” she joked.
Ora even hired a private driver to sweep the pair off to a second location following her proposal, yet the couple never quite got that far.
“It was a waste of money, that bit,” she humorously admitted.
Ora went on, “I’m holding a bloody cake and the balloons are all around us. … He walks into the room and he’s like, ‘What the hell? Is it Valentine’s Day?’ … Anyway, I get down on one knee … I always get so excited for doing things out of the norm!”
The “Let You Love Me” singer explained that she never likes to be “boring,” so it was only natural that she’d be the one to pop the question to Waititi.
“There’s nobody more than Taika that absolutely loved [the surprise]. He loved every minute of it,” she recalled. “Like, he’s a Leo, so it’s all about him!”
Ora confessed that she actually wasn’t sure whether or not Waititi would accept her marriage proposal, even after going to so much trouble.
“He has his own story with his experiences, in that sense,” she clarified. “I was very much [thinking], ‘Maybe he doesn’t want it! Maybe he’s OK to just be in a relationship,’ which was fine with me too. But I just wanted to lock him down! And I did, and he said, ‘Absolutely!’”
Waititi and Ora tied the knot in Los Angeles in August 2022.