Camila Cabello Says She No Longer Sees Normani as a Competitor After Fifth Harmony Drama

Camila Cabello left Fifth Harmony eight years ago, and time is starting to heal those wounds.

In her latest magazine spread, Cabello opens up about her decision to leave the girl group and how she has worked past some of the bad feelings with Normani.

"I don't know if I was struggling more than a normal teenager should, because it's hard to say what's normal, whether you're famous or not," she told Nylon. "My barometer wasn't functional. It was more than a person should bear [in that situation]. I think conflict resolution is really important, especially when it comes to a group. Those are skills you don't have when you're 16 years old. How do you deal with being left out? How do you deal with jealousy? How do you deal with these things without hurting yourself or other people?

Despite the abrupt decision to leave Fifth Harmony and the bad feelings it may have caused the other members of the group, Cabello shared that she is working past some of them with Normani.

In the interview she said that an encounter at Paris Fashion Week in September allowed the two to speak again.

"I remember times when we'd just be laughing so hard," Cabello said.

"With space, we can go back and tap into that. The past couple of times I've seen her, I say something and she laughs really hard. It doesn't feel like we're strangers. We're getting back to the times when we really close," she added.

In the past, Cabello was caught using racist language. CBS reports that Cabello's Tumblr had memes that perpetuate black and Asian stereotypes. Other posts had the n-word in them.

Cabello has since apologized, saying: "When I was younger, I used language that I'm deeply ashamed of and will regret forever. I was uneducated and ignorant and once I became aware of the history and the weight and the true meaning behind this horrible and hurtful language, I was deeply embarrassed I ever used it. I apologized then and I apologize again now."

Normani spoke about the incidents in an interview with Rolling Stone.

"I want to be very clear about what I'm going to say on this uncomfortable subject and figured it would be best to write out my thoughts to avoid being misconstrued, as I have been in the past. I struggled with talking about this because I didn't want it to be a part of my narrative, but I am a black woman, who is a part of an entire generation that has a similar story," Normani began.

"I face senseless attacks daily, as does the rest of my community. This represents a day in the life for us. I have been tolerating discrimination far before I could even comprehend what exactly was happening. Direct and subliminal hatred has been geared towards me for many years solely because of the color of my skin. It would be dishonest if I said that this particular scenario didn't hurt me. It was devastating that this came from a place that was supposed to be a safe haven and a sisterhood, because I knew that if the tables were turned I would defend each of them in a single heartbeat. It took days for her to acknowledge what I was dealing with online and then years for her to take responsibility for the offensive tweets that recently resurfaced. Whether or not it was her intention, this made me feel like I was second to the relationship that she had with her fans," she added.

"I don't want to say that this situation leaves me hopeless because I believe that everyone deserves the opportunity for personal growth," Normani continued. "I really hope that an important lesson was learned in this. I hope there is genuine understanding about why this was absolutely unacceptable."

Elsewhere in the interview, Cabello talked about the misconceptions people had around her most recent album, C,XOXO.

"I said something like 'elements of hyperpop' [somewhere], I hate that I said that, because people ran with this thing before the album was even out," Cabello shared.

She points out one song on the record in particular that deviates from the hyper pop sound as an example of people not listening to the album.

"'Twentysomethings' is literally a guitar song about being broken up with in New York. I can tell that people saying this weren't even listening to the music. They didn't do the reading. They didn't do the listening," she quipped.

"This was a hard album cycle for me. It was really challenging from an audience point of view. I wrote this whole album, and people are questioning my authenticity. It's kind of like a trippy thing. Like, this came from my gut," Cabello continued.

C,XOXO was polarizing upon its release. The album received generally mixed reviews from critics and became her first solo effort to miss the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. A deluxe edition was released in August to middling results as well.

Tags

Camila Cabello, Normani Kordei, Fifth Harmony