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Taika Waititi reveals how Robert Pattinson introduced him to Rita Ora way before ‘the internet’ discovered their romance-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro
Can we call him Cupid?
Turns out Taika and Rita were introduced by Robert Pattinson (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
They were first spotted together back in 2020 while both living in Australia, but Taika Waititi has revealed that it was Robert Pattinson who first introduced him to Rita Ora over four years ago.
The couple have been together since they were each working on projects in Sydney two years and appear to have recently got married, however they have yet to confirm if this is the case.
While we knew that they had been friends for awhile, it turns out it was Robert who can be credited for bringing them together in the first place.
As part of the Louis Theroux Interviews, Rita is one of the subjects of the series, with her episode set to air next week.
In it, Louis also speaks to Taika, who sheds some light on that first encounter.
‘We’ve actually known each other for years before we got together,’ he shared.
Louis has interviewed Rita for his latest show (Picture: BBC/Mindhouse)
‘The internet thinks we met in Australia. You know who brought her to my house was Robert Pattinson.
‘He brought her over when I was having a little barbecue thing and we got chatting and we became friends, we hit it off.’
Robert introduced the couple at a barbeque (Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
As Taika said, they were ‘just mates’ for the following three years before things became romantic.
‘We were in relationships both of us and every time we’d just catch up where we left off and it was a good friendship. Then we decided to ruin it all.’
‘We both work hard, we’ve both got our own jobs, we’re independent and we’re best friends.’
Rita and Taika got together while living in Australia in 2020 (Picture: Rita Ora/ Instagram)
Despite being from opposite sides of the world, Taika said they shared a mutual experience growing up ‘poor in working class families’.
‘Were from different parts of the world – she’s from Kosovo and I’m from New Zealand, they’re very far away but out backgrounds were quite similar,’ he said.
‘We both grew up poor in working class families, her dad owned pubs and she hung out in pubs a lot when she was a kid and my mum worked in pubs and a lot of my family enjoy being in pubs so I was in pubs a lot as a kid.’
Two years ago Taika was in Australia directing Thor: Love and Thunder whilst Rita was down under judging the local version of The Voice.
Earlier this year Taika posted a photo of the pair on the first night they ever met to mark Valentine’s Day.
‘First photo the night we met four years ago. We’ve been mates ever since. Then a year ago we decided to “complicate” things but it just got easier. Happy Valentines Day to my bestie,’ he wrote.
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While Rita told The Independent earlier this year that she ‘didn’t expect to find love in Australia, nor was I looking for it’, she wanted to ‘have a nice big family in the future’.
She added she also wanted to keep her relationship out of the limelight and ‘ protect it’.
Louis Theroux Interviews airs Tuesday at 9pm on BBC One.
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