Rita Ora has done a track with Chris Brown called Loyalty. It’s likely, then, as a collaborator who could do with more US attention, she’s going to be on his side when it comes to defending him in spite of his past (beating Rihanna up in 2009, playing his girlfriend Karreuche Tran and Rihanna off of each other, having a child as a product of an affair while seeing Karreuche...).
The singer told The Sun: ‘Chris Brown is strong, powerful and someone that is important to me personally and professionally.
‘The discrimination and all what people think? If you have a great song then no one cares.’
She added: ‘I love him on different levels. I see how he treats his people and he's a good person with a good heart and a lovely family.’
‘It's really nice that we finally got together because, regardless of what's happened, the song is just amazing.’
Yeah, we doubt we'll be rushing to listen to it. As for discrimination - the only discrimination Chris might be finding is that we’ll let white domestic abusers e.g. Charlie Sheen and Sean Penn back into the public eye where they have a platform without even checking if they’ve been repentant first, whereas Chris, as a black man, is being held to higher standards. It goes without saying that all of them should be held to that high standard. What’s interesting though, is that it does actually seem as if no one cares about Chris Brown anymore.
We’ve noticed the posters about to promote his songs. We’ve noticed he gets radio play, even from the BBC. We’ve noticed how he really wasn’t famous in this country until after he beat his girlfriend to a bloody mess. And while it might be easy to have a go at Rita for supporting Chris, she’s hardly the most powerful person backing him or assisting him into this position where no-one gives a fuck about what he’s done before.
She’s not the person who’s masterminded his ascent to international heart-throb, nor the only person who thinks it’s ok propel to stardom a guy who beat up his girlfriend then spent his next public outing wearing a $300,000 necklace saying ‘OOPS’. There’s a whole bunch of people to blame for Chris Brown’s existence as anything other than an apologetic backing dancer and we’re deathstaring the music industry a hell of a lot right now.
Not all the music industry, mind. You know how Jay-Z didn’t want anything to do with Chris after he hurt his protégé, Rihanna? Well, he’s also Rita’s mentor and something tells us he won’t be happy with her ringing endorsement of the singer. As for Rihanna? We think she might just rise above all of this.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.