Calvin Harris shuts down 'myth' he was to blame for Rita Ora's scrapped second album
Calvin Harris has shut down a long-running rumour he was to blame for his ex-girlfriend Rita Ora's scrapped second album.
The Scottish DJ and the R.I.P. pop star began dating in 2013 and they worked together on the single, I Will Never Let You Down, which was released in March 2014, a couple of months before they broke up.
Rumours soon emerged that Calvin had been producing all of Rita's second album and had pulled songs from it following their split, and he clarified the "myth" in response to tweets by writer George Griffiths over the weekend.
"A reminder that if rita’s calvin harris produced second album (i will never let you down was the first of MANY tracks) hadn’t been torpedoed she would have probably been one of the biggest pop stars in the world for like 2 years, i have never gotten over it," George wrote.
In response, Calvin insisted he did not produce the entire album by tweeting, "Entire thing is a myth, there is one unreleased song i worked on and it isn’t good."
However, the DJ did once block Rita from performing I Will Never You Let You Down, which he wrote and produced, at the Teen Choice Awards, and he cryptically told his Twitter followers at the time that he had "a damn good reason" for doing so.
In an interview with Louis Theroux, which airs in the U.K. on Tuesday, Rita was asked why she didn't release more albums under her deal with Jay-Z's label Roc Nation.
"I don’t know. I was recording for two or three years straight. There was a whole moment that was about to happen, I recorded a music video and they scrapped it. I felt really disappointed like I’d let them down," she replied.
The 32-year-old subsequently took label executives to court in 2015 to be freed from her contract, alleging they only allowed her to release one album when she had material for more. They settled the case in 2016 and Rita signed with Atlantic Records.
After starting over again, Rita finally released her second album, Phoenix, in 2018.
