Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello made one of pop’s highest-profile couples from the summer of 2019 (long live “Señorita“) until they jointly announced their breakup in November 2021.
Since their split, people have held onto hope for a reconciliation and speculated on the status of their relationship on several occasions, as recently as July.
Mendes opened up about it all on the Jay Shetty Podcast.
Shetty asked Mendes how he handles his romantic life being public, which Mendes admitted has been “brutal.”
“I think Camila and I have just done the best job at preserving our private little fire of love for each other because, no matter how strong mentally you are, when there are millions of people commenting on it, it’s so hard not to be affected by it and to be swayed by it and to be inspired by it,” the multiple-platinum-certified Canadian artist said. “To desire it because people desire it or to hate it because hate it, and it’s just human. I feel like her and I have just worked to extremely hard to just protect each other and to protect that love.”
Mendes continued:
“I learned a lot about that. It’s part of it. It’s definitely part of it, and there’s no getting away from that, but if I’m being completely honest, I don’t really go on social media anymore. So, I don’t really see or care what people say about my love life or my relationships because it’s honestly too detrimental to the actual relationship itself. I’ve become pretty strict on that part of it.
It’s crazy, man. We’re not in a movie. This is not a movie. Celebrities — sometimes, maybe they think they are, and sometimes, they literally are. But it isn’t a movie. This is real life. This is real love, and love is confusing and hard and goes through dips, goes through pauses, goes through breaks — goes through so much.”
When Shetty pressed Mendes on what he and Cabello have done “to protect the relationship,” Mendes cited “immense honesty” and “over-communication,” including when one speaks about the other in an interview. He added, “I’ll be the first to text her; she’ll be the first to text me. As long as we’re good, all the noise is just noise.” Mendes also expressed that he’s “lucky” that Cabello is “an amazing human being” and “incredibly understanding and thoughtful and caring, so communicating with her is not difficult.”
On Wednesday, October 2, Mendes acknowledged Pop Crave’s aggregation of his comments about Cabello when an X (formerly Twitter) user named The Notorious J.O.V. wrote, “They don’t play about each other.” Mendes replied, “No we don’t.”
Elsewhere with Shetty, Mendes dove into Shawn, his forthcoming LP due out on October 18, and explained why he canceled his Wonder world tour in July 2022.
Watch the full episode above.
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