Taika Waititi addresses Rita Ora and Tessa Thompson photos: ‘I was doing nothing wrong’

‘I think in the world of the internet, everything goes away pretty quick’

Taika Waititi has spoken out over the frenzy surrounding photos of him with his girlfriend, singer Rita Ora, and actor Tessa Thompson.

The Oscar-winning director was pictured sharing an intimate moment with Ora and Thompson, reportedly on the morning after a party at Waititi’s Sydney home, in May.

Asked whether the moment being made public had upset him, he told The Sydney Morning Herald in a recent interview: “Not really.”

“I think in the world of the internet, everything goes away pretty quick,” he said.

Waititi was in the middle of filming the highly anticipated sequel Thor: Love and Thunder, in which Thompson stars as Valkyrie, when the photos emerged.

At the time, The Daily Telegraph reported that Marvel bosses had reprimanded Waititi over the photos as it was “not exactly the image they’re looking to project in relation to one of their biggest franchises”.

However, Waititi appeared to feel the situation was blown out of proportion.

“‘Is that a big deal?’ No, not really,” he said. “I was doing nothing wrong. It’s fine.”

In the same interview, the filmmaker said he expects to be working on post-production for Love and Thunder until February next year, after which he will complete some TV projects and move onto his next film.

“I don’t know if that’s going to be Star Wars,” he says. “I hope it’ll be that but there’s a whole lot of other little things that I’ve got my sticky little fingers attached to so we’ll see.”