Rita Ora in hotel quarantine ahead of The Voice
The Voice coach is in privately funded Sydney hotel quarantine, ahead of Seven production.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Coronavirus, News
UK singer Rita Ora is in hotel quarantine in Sydney ahead of The Voice production getting underway.
The series is coming to Seven with Ora joining Guy Sebastian, Keith Urban and Jess Mauboy as coaches.
Opposition home affairs spokeswoman, Kristina Keneally criticised her quarantine telling The Guardian, “Every celebrity who takes up a place in quarantine is a place denied to a stranded Australian.”
But sources tell TV Tonight that Ora’s hotel quarantine is privately funded and separate to caps on arrivals.
Arrivals into Australia are currently capped at around 4,250 a week with an estimated 39,000 Australians hoping to return.
In December Ora apologised after reports emerged that she should have been self-isolating when she celebrated her birthday at a London restaurant.
In a statement, she said: “I recently flew to Egypt to perform at a corporate event for a private company, where my travel party followed protocol and presented negative Covid tests upon entry, as required by Egyptian authorities.
“Upon my return to Britain, I should have followed government advice and isolated myself for the required period. As you know, I didn’t follow government advice and … I apologise again, unreservedly.”
A BBC report alleges Ora’s security team also asked for CCTV cameras to be turned off during the party and offered the restaurant £5,000 to break lockdown rules. The venue is accused of breaching licensing rules by not allowing police into the premises and failing to provide them with CCTV footage.
Ora has previously teamed up the World Health Organisation to launch ‘Stop The Spread’ merchandise.
She began quarantine on Monday.
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11 Responses
13 episodes….i knew Seven were going to butcher this. It reminds me when they did the same to The X Factor live shows? Remember that when sending numerous contestants home in one week. Why do networks have to mess with a proven format. I won’t completely judge till i see it but yeah…its disappointing.
13 episodes ? How many did Nine have ?
This is a disgrace! Why is she given priority over Australian Citizens??
I can’t verify if she was given priority in arrival caps, but the quarantine does not impact on quarantine space as it is privately funded. A number of internationals are in Australia as part of keeping film & TV industry working, similar to tennis stars.
At the end of the day, her being here is a good thing. It’s another local production and more work for Aussies who have probably been out of work for a while.
As for the judges: Guy came across from 9, Keith was an original judge on the first series, Rita has been a judge on the UK version, and Jess is probably as if not more likable than Delta, and came from a similar experience with Idol (as did Guy of course), so I feel they are solid choices for a judging panel.
Why bother with 13 eps? The whole idea was to steal away from 9 and if they can get a few wins for less production costs, 7 will be happy. 9’s was way too drawn out anyway.
Solid judging panel yes but boring because we’ve seen most of them before.
Personally I don’t think short run singing competitions work. Australian Idol and X factor you had 12+ weeks to get to know and fall in love with the contestants. Now its over in a flash.
In November, before Victoria restarted hotel quarantine, there were 36,000 stranded Australians and the cap was over 6,000 per week. how is it that 10 weeks later the number is 39,000 stranded Australians?
Mr J. – allegedly we have more people leaving Australia than returning. I know of at least 4 people who flew back from the UK for a few months; they have since flown back out to London rather than find work here in Perth.
Its a shame seven could not keep the judges that nine had. Their choices of judges seems a bit boring. Many judges are too scared to tell a contestant the truth in case the audience does not like it.
Why are they even bothering for 13 episodes? No point really. Obviously I’ll still watch cos I love the voice but it won’t be the same.
If you look at the current format (based on 2020), it feels repetitive and a massive drag. That to me as a viewer, would begin to lose interest even with after the Blind Auditions. 10 Episodes (practically half of the entire season) was based on that first round, way too many. The Battles/Knockouts/Playoffs feels the same with some minor exceptions. These were enough to put me off with the show for a while now. So I can understand why the Seven Network would want to fasten up. That’s my opinion I guess so I’m not sure how it’ll work, but I’m keen to watch.