Camila Cabello Recalls ‘Distancing’ Herself From Fifth Harmony Before Leaving the Group

As pointed out by Alex Cooper on the latest episode of Call Her Daddy Wednesday (March 6), a lot of drama ensued after her guest, Camila Cabello, left Fifth Harmony to pursue a solo career back in 2016.

Perhaps most notably, the X Factor-generated girl group made a clear dig at their ex-bandmate when Ally Brooke, Normani, Dinah Jane and Lauren Jauregui, freshly a band of four, depicted a faceless fifth member being yanked offstage just before their performance at the 2017 VMAs. Later on, Cabello would say that the move “definitely hurt [her] feelings.”

Flash forward to her interview on Cooper’s podcast, and the “Bam Bam” musician says she’s now able to look back fondly on her time with 5H. “I feel like I can really focus on and remember the really joyful times,” she said between sips of red wine. “I grew a lot in that group.”

Cabello also explained what led to her departure from the quintet, noting that she’d started privately writing songs on her own that she originally debated passing along to other artists. “It turned into, ‘No, actually, I want to sing these songs by myself,’” she recalled. “I started distancing myself from the group vision. They were still really passionate and into that.”

“I was just like, ‘I’m not happy here anymore. It doesn’t feel aligned,’” added The Voice alum. “It’s like any breakup, yeah. It sucks.”

The remaining four members of Fifth Harmony would eventually announce their hiatus in 2018. They’ve all nurtured solo careers in the years since, and Cabello joined her former bandmates in congratulating Normani on announcing her long-awaited debut album, Dopamine, last month.

One of Cabello’s first moves as a soon-to-be soloist back in 2015 was duetting with Shawn Mendes on “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” years after which she and the Canadian artist would date for about two years, ending November 2021. In 2023, they briefly got back together before splitting once again, another topic Cabello discussed with Cooper.

The “Havana” singer also gave details about her headline-making trip to Turks and Caicos with Drake in December, which at the time led many to suspect there was something romantic happening between the two stars. But according to Cabello, she was just there to show her upcoming album to the “God’s Plan” wrapper, who she says inspired a lot of her new music.

“It was vacation plus work,” she told Cooper. “But I will say, you know what? I love that man. I love him. We all love him. First of all, we did not go on vacation. This was like a homie, friends trip. I really felt like he would like my album, and so I DM’d him and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m just gonna put it out there.’ We hung out, I played him my album. He loved it.”

As for the record itself, which Cabello hasn’t yet announced — although she did recently share a teaser for a new track on social media — the musician says that making the project has been “such a journey.” “It started off with me really having that intention of going back to how it started with me,” she said. “Sitting with myself, and really getting back to that first passion of songwriting.”

Watch Cabello’s Call Her Daddy interview below.