Rita Ora says she's 'proud of being an immigrant' as she opens up about becoming a successful artist who grew up as a refugee

Rita Ora has said that she is 'proud of being an immigrant' as she opened up about becoming a successful artist after growing up as a refugee.

The hitmaker, 35, is currently busy working on her fourth album and recently reprised her role as the Queen of Hearts in Descendants.

But despite now being a global superstar with an estimated net worth of £26million, Rita's childhood couldn't have been more different.

She was born in Pristina, Kosovo, but her family fled during the persecution of ethnic Albanians in the early nineties.

At the time, her mum Vera was a doctor and her dad Besnik, an economist, and upon arrival in the UK, they learnt English and started their lives again. 

Her dad swapped his career to run a pub, and famously managed the Queen Arms Pub in Kilburn, London. Meanwhile, her mum retrained as a psychiatrist.

In a new interview, Rita opened up about her upbringing as a refugee and if she had ever felt uncomfortable about the way immigration is discussed in the UK.

She told The Times: 'All I know is I'm always grateful for the education I received and proud of being an immigrant.

'I think a lot of immigrants have a special energy: maybe a touch of imposter syndrome that makes them ready to improve themselves.

'Even if they're not first generation, you look back at so many great artists, and there's an immigrant story in their family history.'

Kosovo is the second-youngest country in the world and the youngest in Europe, declaring its independence from Serbia in February 2008.

Elsewhere, Rita is planning to take to the big screen again in one of her husband Taika Waititi's films, and revealed she would love to appear in one of his movies.

She said: 'Absolutely. I'm surprised it has taken this long! It all has to be about the script, the story and it just has to make sense but that is one of our dreams.'

The couple have been married for almost four years and will celebrate their anniversary in August.

Sharing their plans to celebrate, she said: 'We do things so last minute. We are both fire signs, he's a Leo and I'm a Sag so we never plan anything.'

It comes after she recently revealed how she is preparing her body for menopause after freezing her eggs in her twenties.

The singer explained how she had the time of her life in her twenties when her career soared, and she was 'enjoying every second'.

But when she turned 30 five years ago, she noticed major shifts in how she was feeling physically, leading to a complete overhaul of her fitness regime and the mindset that she should 'treat my body like I'm a kind of athlete'.

She told Women's Health UK: 'I don't want people to get confused with [my health journey] being about me being obsessed with my physical appearance, because I think sometimes that line gets very blurred. It's all to do with how I feel.'

As well as taking up weight training, the chart-topper has educated herself on menopause after watching her mother go through breast cancer treatment, which stimulated menopause at an early age.

'I'm trying to get ahead of it and learn about it,' she explained, adding: 'I learned a lot from Davina [McCall] while working with her on The Masked Singer.'

Rita, who is stepmother to her 50-year-old husband Taika's daughters, also feels secure with her fertility health after freezing her eggs twice, once aged 24 and again aged 27.

'[Back then] a doctor told me it was a really good time to preserve the best quality [eggs],' she said.

'It was actually the best advice, because now I'm in my mid-thirties and I have a lot of friends really trying to figure it out. It will just be more of an expansion when the time comes.

'Davina is always like, "Hurry up – you can do it!"'

Rita and film-maker Taika wed in a secret ceremony in August 2022, after she bucked tradition and popped the question.