Camila Cabello has opened up about her former girl group Fifth Harmony throwing major shade at her during a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2017.
In an interview with The New York Times, published on Thursday, January 11, the “Havana” songstress openly shared her feelings about her former bandmates’ public jab, in which a fifth woman was abruptly yanked from the stage before the now-quartet started singing at the award show. “It definitely hurt my feelings,” the 20-year-old told the publication. “I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t prepared for it — especially because at that point I’d moved on from it. I was just like, ‘What? Why?’”
“I think there’s a healthy amount of space you need to give certain things,” she said. “I have to make space for the good stuff to happen in my life. I don’t like holding onto the past, especially when it’s stuff that, in my opinion, is just petty.”
Cabello announced on December 18, 2016, that she was leaving the band after the final stop of their Jingle Ball tour. Lauren Jauregui, 21, Normani Kordei, 21, Dinah Jane Hansen, 20 and Ally Brooke, 24, then released a separate statement saying they were blindsided by the news and were first informed of it “through her representatives.”
The “Crying in the Club” songstress revealed that her collaboration with Shawn Mendes — the hit song “I Know What You Did Last Summer” — was what first caused tension between her and the rest of the girls. She said she had expressed her desire to write songs for the group as well as for her solo album but was continuously shut down. “I was just curious and I wanted to learn and I saw all these people around me making music, writing songs and being so free,” she told the newspaper. “I just wanted to do that and it did not work.”
“It became clear that it was not possible to do solo stuff and be in the group at the same time,” she added. “If anyone wants to explore their individuality, it’s not right for people to tell you no.” Working on her solo album has helped her find her own voice as an artist: “I feel like the best way to come up with something new and different is just to be the you-est you possible,” she said. “If you pull from all the different little parts of yourself, nobody can replicate that.”
While her friendship with the girls in the group has changed, the “Bad Things” singer has been making other friends in Hollywood. Most recently, the singer hung out with her pals Taylor Swift and Ed Sheehan backstage during a Jingle Ball concert and was surprised to see Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds were there as well.
“I just got really nervous ’cause I wasn’t expecting for them to be there. And I love Ryan, I love, you know, I’ve seen Deadpool and, you know, I just love his movies,” she said in an interview with KTU airing Friday, January 12. “And obviously, Blake Lively is a queen. And I love them together but they were super cool. Ed and Taylor I’ve known for awhile, they’re my friends. But I just wasn’t expecting for them to be there and I just got kind of weird, I was like, ‘Why are you so weird, stop being weird.’”
Cabello’s debut solo album, Camila, is set to be released on Friday, January 12.
