Camila Cabello paces Sunset Boulevard in the sweltering heat. Having just finished an acting class, she laughs easily and often into the cell phone cradled to her ear as she makes her way towards her mother’s car for a ride home. She seems like a regular, endearing, playful 22-year-old—except for the fans swarming to greet her along the way.
There are many ways you could describe Cabello’s life over the past year, but ‘regular’ isn’t one of them. Since the rise of 2017’s radio smash Havana, she’s become Spotify’s second-most-streamed artist.
She opened for Taylor Swift on the pop star’s Reputation tour, and headlined her own Never Be the Same world tour. She was nominated for two Grammy awards; her self-titled album went platinum; and she became a L’Oréal Paris spokeswoman and collaborated with the brand on a makeup collection. And, more recently, she purchased a villa reportedly worth $3.38 million in Hollywood Hills.
She even found time to fall in love. Most importantly, however, she found her confidence. “I think I just know myself more,” she says. “I’m more gentle with myself. I think I naturally have less anxiety now, because I realised that so many of the things that brought it on weren’t so scary after all.”
Born just outside Havana and raised in Miami, Cabello had a lot of anxiety growing up. As the breakout star of the singing group ‘Fifth Harmony,’ she was always terrified of being interviewed as she rose to fame on X Factor.
Then, after four and a half years together as a girl group, ‘Fifth Harmony’ suddenly announced Cabello’s departure via Twitter before she had a chance to confirm it herself. Ultimately, she was fast-tracked into going solo before she was really ready to leave. Her anxiety peaked, her obsessive-compulsive tendencies skyrocketed, and she was left to figure out who she was.
Over time, she slowly learned to quiet her negative thoughts and took her grandparents’ advice not to let things bother her so much.
“You don’t even realise how much stuff doesn’t matter,” they would tell her. Looking back, Cabello thinks growing up does that to you. “It just chills you out,” she says, laughing. “I started trusting myself and liking myself more.”
Lately, Cabello has been writing every day. Even though her new, still-untitled album is nearly finished (with no release date at press time), she’s still jotting down lyrics, brainstorming music videos, and creating new songs.
Only a year removed from her first solo album, Camila, Cabello believes her new offering really bares her soul, drawing from recent experiences of finding love and finding herself.
With the release of her steamy duet Señorita, with love interest Shawn Mendes, this past June, Cabello also feels she’s grown as an artiste. She recalls how she’d tried to impress Pharrell Williams while working on Camila. Eager for him to praise her talent, she created songs that weren’t as heartfelt. These days, she’s not afraid to speak her mind. “No matter who the person is or how much I want to impress them, I’m not going to let that rule how I act, how open I am, or what my opinion is,” she says. “I’m just going to be myself. I listen to my gut. That’s all I can do.”
Q: Where do you think your insecurities and anxieties stem from?
A : I ask myself this question every day. I think it’s chemical; I think I have high cortisol levels. I’m at a point in my life where everything feels so intense—it’s weird. And even when it’s something exciting, I think that just translates to anxiety and stress. I just have to breathe through stuff.
Q: Did your obsessive-compulsive disorder worsen when you left ‘Fifth Harmony’?
A : The compulsive behaviour happened to me as far back as elementary school. But the OCD, the more difficult side of it, came full swing at the end of my time with the group. I was under insane amounts of stress, and it was too much anxiety for me to handle; it turned into OCD. I’ve never taken medicine. I learned a lot of self-soothing and coping mechanisms to rewire my brain along the way. I think learning how to navigate it and be gentle with it—and even love it—makes you a better person in the end.
Q: You’ve hinted that there is much more personal material on your new album, and that you’re really emotional about it. Why is that?
A: Honestly, this past year and a half was the first time I really experienced falling in love with another person. I think there is so much more depth to love when you know you are in it with another person. You have so much more to say—I think that’s what makes me emotional.
Q: You’d never felt in love before?
A: No, I hadn’t. I’ve loved people from afar, but falling in love with someone and having feelings for someone but they don’t know.... It’s different.
Q: You’re so open about your personal life, but then you seem cautious about your romantic relationships.
A : I am, to a maddening degree. Love is the most sacred, precious thing to me. I want to always feel like my love is between me and that person, and never belonging to anyone else. As much as I love my fans, and as much as I love people, I like to live my life as normally as possible. In a relationship, it makes me feel uncomfortable to invite everyone in on that.
Q: Do you think there are many misconceptions about you in the media?
A: I don’t really know. Honestly, I’m, like, never on social media—I don’t know what people think about me. There are probably a lot of misconceptions, but I don’t care. I think I have a better, wiser perspective on things because I am older and I understand myself a lot more. I feel far more grown-up. Growing up! It’s an adventure.