This morning, thousands of people around Britain will have woken up five minutes before their alarm was due to go off. In that moment, their morning routine will have started. They'll have had a cup of tea. They'll have watched some BBC Breakfast. They'll have showered, maybe shaved, rounded the kids into the car, dropped them off at school, filled up at the petrol station before work.
On their way in to pay, their eyes will have fallen on the Sun newspaper, where the front page will have read:
"Did Rita Ora Zzzzzzzzzzz With Jay? And has she started taunting Beyoncé?"
And these people, busy as they are, will have thought to themselves, "yeah, she probably did", and got on with their morning. They won't have considered that the country's leading newspaper would run a front page with story based on something as tenuous as a Snapchat post (particularly on a day when the rest of print media is leading with the Hillsborough verdict, notably absent from Wednesday's Sun cover for reasons I CAN'T PUT MY FINGER ON RIGHT NOW). They won't have realised that Rita Ora already denied the story on Twitter hours before the newspaper went to print. They won't even have bought the damn thing - after all, who wants to fanny about getting 50p out on a Wednesday morning when they're already late for work?
And yet, off they'll have gone to the office, where they'll gleefully have said to the person next to them: "Did you hear about Rita Ora and Jay Z? I saw it on the front of the Sun this morning. What a slag."
Rita Ora takes priority over Hillsborough in Wednesday's Sun
The question is, how did the Sun justify running a story on their front page, essentially pointing a big accusatory finger at Rita Ora and throwing her under the bus in the process? Well, it's a story in three parts. All of which, frankly, seem like total nonsense to me, and two of which are based on the same Snapchat selfie:
1. RITA ORA UPLOADED A SELFIE TO SNAPCHAT WEARING A LEMON BRA.
On Tuesday, several online outlets ran a story about Rita Ora posting a selfie on Snapchat, sporting a bra that had two lemons on it. A bra, might I add, from a brand she is literally being paid to endorse. But why let that stand in the way of a good story, eh? Let the witch-hunt commence.
But wait! Torches and pitchforks down, people! THERE'S MORE.
2. RITA ORA WAS WEARING A 'J' NECKLACE IN THE SELFIE.
Pretty damning, right? Except she wasn't. I'll direct you to my favourite line in the Sun online's take on the tale:
That's right, people. This is what constitutes front page news now. A woman wearing a necklace that looks like the letter 'J', but in fact is not. It would actually be laugh out loud hilarious, were it not for the fact that Rita Ora is a real person with real feelings who has been accused of something simply because her necklace looked like something.
Rita wore a bra from Tezenis - a brand she models for
3. RITA ORA WAS PICTURED WEARING THE SAME GUCCI DRESS AS BEYONCÉ THE FOLLOWING DAY, PROMPTING SPECULATION SHE'S 'TAUNTING' HER.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I wanted to taunt someone, I probably wouldn't go out wearing the exact same dress as them. Who would do that?
"I know what'll really get one over on her... wearing a dress she wore months ago, in one of the most critically-acclaimed music videos of her whole career. YEAH. Copying her style, that'll really show her who's boss."
And that's it, folks. Those three factors alone were enough for Rita Ora to find herself on the front page of the Sun, a newspaper whose only "source quotes" to try and strengthen their embarrassing reach were about how she and Beyoncé were no longer friends (were they ever?), yet still felt it necessary to run the whole thing as an "exclusive".
Then, perhaps most offensively of all, they printed it with the woeful headline "Did Rita Ora Zzzzzzzzzzz With Jay Z", because by all means implement Rita in getting between one of the most famous couples in the world, but saying the word "sex" would really be indecent, wouldn't it?
This all stems, unfortunately, from the aforementioned online outlets, who yesterday ran the story in what I can only assume was a mad rush to ride the Beyoncé wave for as long as possible, even if it meant their traffic came at Rita's expense.
Now, listen. I'm a celebrity journalist, I know how these things work. It's a slow news day, Beyoncé's Lemonade album is trending, and along comes Rita Ora in her lemon bra, at a time when everyone's trying to work out who "Becky with the good hair" - thought to have slept with Jay Z, inspiring several songs on the album - is. Why not just heavily imply it's Rita?
Well, I'll tell you why. Decency, frankly. And if something as trivial as Rita Ora's brassiere had to inspire a Beyoncé story, how much more difficult would it have been to run it as 'Rita Ora Shows Solidarity With Beyoncé' instead?
Here, I'll get you started:
Clearly a woman of taste, Rita Ora has proved herself to be a member of the Behyive, showing support for Beyoncé, following the release of her sixth album, Lemonade.
The I Will Never Let You Down singer got everyone talking with a raunchy selfie on her Snapchat page, sporting a bra with a lemon design, appearing to show her praise for the Queen Bey's latest release...
I'm going to leave that there, because it's not an interesting read, is it? And why isn't it an interesting read? Because it's a story that doesn't need to be told. And why doesn't it need to be told?
Because it's probably not true. Funny, that.