For the first time since Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes released a joint statement announcing their split in November, Cabello is discussing why the pair ended their two-year relationship in an
interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1’s New Music Daily. She attributed the breakup to a change in priorities as they each navigate their careers in their 20s more than a breakdown of their relationship itself.
“My priorities have fluctuated and my focus has changed throughout my life,” she started. “Those years that we were dating, I don’t even feel like, even while I was writing this album, and even still now, I guess, my focus is really on, how can I be a well-rounded person? And apart from my career, my focus wasn’t even on my career. This album literally was a tool of me becoming a more well-rounded person and acquiring intimacy with my collaborators. That was my number one intention, was not even, how do I make the best album and the best music? My number one intention was, how can I just make music with people that I want to f*cking have dinner with afterwards? How can me talking about these things help me build trust with people? How can I talk about the icky things that I haven’t talked about with anybody and then get it to a place where these people, because they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I totally relate,’ can validate my own experience?”
“And same thing with those years that we were together,” she continued, addressing her relationship with Mendes. “My focus was just, how can I live a happy life and be in a healthy, happy relationship? I was doing therapy a lot. My focus really has shifted. And even now while I’m in promo mode, honestly, if I’m not having fun, what’s the f*cking point? I think as I get older, yeah, the priorities shift. And I feel like that was that way for both of us. Because we both started so young too, we’re really learning how to be healthy adults. And that sometimes means not having your number one focus be your career. And that’s okay.”
Cabello also addressed how she looks at heartbreak now in the interview. “Something that my mom has always said to me, I remember my first two heartbreaks, me just being devastated. And my mom being like, ‘You’re devastated now, and you’re going to be devastated the next time that this happens to you,’” she said. “And you’re always like, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to... I’m never going to experience something like this again.’ And life proves you wrong every time. You just never know what’s around the corner. And my mom has literally always, multiple times, I’m like ‘This happened and then this happened.’ She’s like, ‘Asi es la vida,’ like, ‘That’s just the way life is.’”
Listen to Cabello’s full interview here.