Rita Ora just opened up about how she “still feels” Liam Payne’s presence.
The 34-year-old singer, who has worked closely with the One Direction alum on their duet, For You, from the film Fifty Shades Freed, explained she still sings the track “all the time” to keep his memory alive.
When asked if she would be watching Payne, who died last year in October after falling from the balcony of his hotel room in Argentina, final project, the Netflix show, Building the Band, Ora told Elvis Duran and The Morning Show: “I 100 per cent will watch it.”
“That’s a really great friend of mine. I still sort of feel him anyway, so it’s fine,” she added.
The Your Song hitmaker continued, “I have the last song that I think we did together as a duo and I sing it all the time. And it just feels like he’s just right there. And we always do a cute little moment of a photo of him and it feels fantastic to just feel like he’s still around through music.”
“That’s why music is so powerful. It really does bring back a person, a memory, a feeling. So yeah, I have this incredible memory with him, with For You, our song together, and I’ll always have that,” Ora concluded.
This also not the first time she has remembered Payne, as back when she hosted the MTV EMA Awards in November 2024, a month after the Strip That Down crooner’s death, she paid a heartfelt tribute to her dear friend.
“I just want to take a moment to remember someone that was very, very dear to us,” she sentimentally said.
“We lost him recently, and he was a big part of the MTV world and my world, and I think a lot of yours at home and everybody in here tonight. Liam Payne was one of the kindest people that I knew. And you know, there were so many ways that we were talking about honouring him, and I think sometimes just simply speaking is enough,” the Poison singer further announced to the audience.
“He had the biggest heart, he was always the first person to offer help in any way that he could. He put so much joy into every room he walked in. And he left such a mark on this world. So let’s just take a moment to remember our friend,” Rita Ora concluded at the ceremony, remembering Liam Payne.
