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Shawn Mendes has confessed how he and his ex, Camila Cabello, have maintained their love for each other, after breaking up again last year.
The 26-year-old singer addressed how he and Cabello rekindled their romance in 2023, following their 2021 breakup, during a recent episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast. During the conversation, host Jay Shetty asked Mendes how he felt about being in such a public reconciliation with his Cabello, who he dated for a second time for only a few months.
In response, Mendes confessed that while the off-and-on romance was “brutal” for him and his ex, he still has a strong connection with her.
“Honestly, I think Camila and I have just done the best job at preserving our private little fire of love for each other,” he said. “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, and to desire it.”
After emphasizing how much he cares for Cabello, he confessed that he never looks at anything fans say about his love life online.
“And I feel like her and I have just worked extremely hard to just protect each other, and protect that love, you know, and I learned a lot about that. And it’s part of it,” the “Stitches” singer said. “And there’s no getting away from that. But if I’m being completely honest, I don’t really go on social media any more.”
He continued: “So I don’t really see or care what people say about my love life or my relationships because it’s just, it’s honestly too detrimental to the actual relationship itself that I’ve become pretty strict on that part of it, you know, but it’s crazy, man.”
Mendes also noted that celebrities’ love lives aren’t a part of a movie, before highlighting the ups and downs of being in a relationship.
“This is real love, and love is confusing and hard and goes through dips and goes through pauses, goes through breaks, goes through so much,” he said. “I just feel like as a celebrity, I just want to just come at it and be really truthful from the place of, this is what love is like for me, you know.”
When Shetty asked Mendes how he protected his relationship with Cabello, he said he prioritized “immense honesty” and “over-communication.”
“You know, like, ‘I felt this way when I was doing this interview, and I said this thing, and I felt weird, and I’m sorry if it came off like that,’” he explained. “It just immediately cuts through any type of assumption that I could make or she could make from anything. And we’re both amazing at that. I’ll be the first to text her. She’ll be the first to text me. And we just, as long as we’re good, we’re good.”
He shared that when he’s receiving this type of honesty from Cabello, he makes sure that he “understands the situation [they’re] in.” Mendes concluded that as their personal lives continue to make headlines, he and his ex both “have respect for the fact that [they’re] storytellers.”
Cabello and Mendes were just close friends in 2014, and they even released their first song together, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” in 2015. After a steamy performance of their single, “Señorita,” in 2019, Cabello confirmed their relationship in October of that year. The pair went strong for two years, before revealing on Instagram that they had split.
“Hey guys we’ve decided to end our romantic relationship, but our love for one another as humans is stronger than ever,” they wrote in a joint Instagram post, shared in November 2021.
However, in 2023, they gave the relationship another shot, as Cabello and Mendes reunited at Coachella with a cheeky kiss. The next two months saw the stars holding hands in Venice, California, and New York City. By June 2023, their second run at romance had ended.
During an appearance on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast in March, the “Havana” singer explained why she chose to rekindle her relationship with Mendes in the first place.
“It’s crazy because I’m kind of impulsive in that way – if I feel it, I say,” she said. “So, I would rather say it and see what happens and then wake up the next day and find out that it’s been heavily documented. I opted for that route. It is what it is. It was a fun route – it was a fun moment.”
She also acknowledged that when the relationship didn’t work a second time, she and Mendes still ended on good terms. “It took us both less time to be like, ‘This doesn’t feel right and we don’t really need to try so hard to make it work. It’s all good. This is not feeling good, like ‘Let’s be friends, I love you. It’s all good, let’s move on,’” she explained.
