What Does Camila Cabello's Familia Tell The states About Her Breakdown With Shawn Mendes?

"Blink and the fairytale falls apart." Photograph: Theo Wargo/Getty Images; Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Camila Cabello named her third album Familia, both to award her Cuban and Mexican heritage (the record features a mariachi band and Spanish vocals) and the family and friends who support her in life. Merely there's one person lurking throughout who'due south no longer in her familia: Shawn Mendes. When the pair appear their split in November, Cabello was already mid-album bike, having released i vocal and teased another. Now, months later, Familia is here, and it'south not quite a breakup album — even though some of the songs were clearly written or edited later they ended things, many are probable about their relationship. Withal, like Cabello's gushy previous album Romance, Familia does agree a lot of clues virtually Cabello and Mendes'south relationship and its downfall.

At present, Cabello hasn't cornered the lyrical market on this topic. Soon after the split, Mendes put out the pitiful-boi song "Information technology'll Be Okay," which expressed his apprehensions nigh the end of the human relationship while declaring to Cabello, "I will dearest yous either way." Then, a few weeks ago, Mendes followed up with "When Y'all're Gone," another clear breakup song nearly "starin' at a moving picture of the only daughter that matters" — a.k.a. Cabello — and missing her "deeply." (How is he spending Cabello's release day, you ask? Promoting his upcoming North American tour and minding his business.)

Cabello, meanwhile, has told People her new anthology is completely true, which is practically an invitation to dive into the lyrics for some theorizing. Let'south get to it.

Él se quiere mudar pa' Miami y tomarse un tequila con papi

Él se quiere invitar a mi party no uh-huh, uh-huh-huh-huh

Él sonríe aunque no entiende nada, yo le puedo dar clases privadas

Y united nations par de besitos en la cara no uh-huh, uh-huh-huh-huh

Cabello opens Familia in Spanish to gossip virtually her then-boyfriend, since he probably won't empathise it anyway. She sings well-nigh a guy who's eager to spend time in Miami (where she's from) and spill some tequila with her dad — and who also needs Spanish lessons because he doesn't get what'south going on one-half the time. Of course, we know Shawn went to Miami with Cabello during the pandemic, so it sounds like that wasn't where Shamila's issues started. And on those Castilian lessons, Mendes did say Cabello joined him in the studio while recording "KESI" with Camilo in 2021, to brand sure his pronunciation was right.

Sometimes I don't trust the way I feel

On my Instagram talkin' 'tour "I'm healed"

Worryin' if I still got sex appeal

Hopin' that I don't drive off this hill

When we're makin' dearest, I wanna be there

And I wanna feel y'all pullin' my hair

And believe the words you say in my ear

Gotta get outside, I need some air

Cabello has been on a wellness kick on Instagram since her breakup with Mendes, posting about meditating and spending time in nature. On "psychofreak," she sings about where that'southward coming from: feeling similar she can't be nowadays in life. "Tell me that you love me, are you lot lying?" she sings in the chorus, setting up the doubts virtually Mendes that take her out of the moment. It'due south not just in their relationship, either — "Lamentable, couldn't focus on the movie," she sings later in the song, perchance referencing some difficulty around her panned starring role in 2021's Cinderella.

Everybody says they miss the old me

I been on this ride since I was fifteen

I don't blame the girls for how it went downwards, downwardly

But intermission — let's talk about a different breakup for a sec. Cabello told Reuters this vocal had a reference to her rocky departure from Fifth Harmony, and sure enough, she says she doesn't take beefiness with her quondam bandmates. But also, could that "down" exist a reference to their beginning song without her, "Down"?

You lot said you hated the ocean, but you're surfin' now

I said I'd love you for life, but I just sold our house

We were kids at the first, I approximate we're grown-ups now, mmm

Couldn't ever imagine even havin' doubts

Just not everything works out

Okay, back to the Shamila split, our topic at mitt. On "psychofreak," Cabello called the couple's abode "a house of cards," singing, "Blink and the fairytale falls autonomously." That sets up the opening lines of "Bam Bam," the post-breakdown single she first released in March. Four tracks into Familia, Cabello is finally getting shady — while she's been posting almost being in nature, Mendes has indeed been showing off his embankment bod in posts about surfing since the split up. Merely bragging about selling said house? Now there'south a clapback.

You should be here, should exist with me this night

'Stead you're working, you're working all the time

Why am I home solitary with your glass of wine?

Oh no, oh no, this is not the life

Cabello outset performed this song on her NPR Tiny Desk in October, before she and Mendes announced their breakup, so permit'south assume this 1 was written pre-split. All the same, things sound a little off, with Mendes apparently shrugging off time together with Cabello for work. Sure plenty, a source told People after the breakup that piece of work got in the couple'due south mode — and from the way Cabello sings it, it sounds like Mendes's piece of work. (Granted, she may have had high expectations for their relationship, singing about dreams of "traveling the world together" and "making love in the afternoon." You do both have jobs to do!)

Listen, listen, I get information technology, I get it

More anybody, I get it

Life is right at present, you tend to forget it

Looking back, you're gonna regret it

Here information technology is again: the problems with being present. Except this fourth dimension, Mendes seems to be the culprit. "La Buena Vida" is the angriest song on Familia, and this is where things start to pick up — with a confident Cabello sassing Mendes almost missing her later. Remember their little postal service-breakdown become-together in January? Afterward, a source told Hollywood Life Mendes "thought that beingness without her would be easier than it is." Hm!

Did you get taller? Your pilus looks longer

Couple tattoos since I saw ya

Lookin' at your hands, thinkin' of my plans for 'em

It'due south a bit hard to get the timeline straight on "Quiet," one of the sexier songs off Familia. Cabello opens singing most feeling anxious to encounter Mendes, before getting to a chorus about kissing and touching her ex in the backseat of a car. Sounds pretty coupled, right? Simply then, at that place's this 2nd verse, when it sounds like we're at mail-breakup status. (Thank you to the stans who noticed that aye, Mendes did become a new tattoo subsequently the divide.) Cabello goes on to imagine having Mendes'southward hands on her again … before we get right back to the backseat of that car in the chorus. Sure, that'southward just how songwriting works, but possibly, just maybe, could she be saying her and Mendes had a picayune moment together during that reunion?

Hate it when you shut me out

Actin' like it's your shit to figure out

Don't wanna be touched, don't wanna discuss

I get it, I just

Now I'm in my head about what's in your head

Come back to bed, can we talk almost it?

Noticing a theme? In Cabello's view, Mendes seems to be shutting her out — and that'south extending to his emotions, which he'south previously sung about having trouble expressing. "Why you hidin' from me?" Cabello sings. "It's only makin' information technology worse."

Seeing visions on the ceiling

Drunken kisses, heavy breathing

You're upward against the wall

She's unbuttoning your jeans and you lot tell her that you want it all

Contrary to the championship, Cabello reveals in this vocal that she did take some doubts virtually Mendes — specifically, worrying near him with other girls, which she likewise sings about on previous song "Hasta Los Dientes." Just Cabello's imagined scene (which is kinda hot, to those of us of glory-crush-on-Shawn-Mendes experience) comes from a real worry, she adds, that Mendes and that other woman had "a existent connection." Withal, Mendes leaves her "with no doubt" when they're together and he's bitter her lip, she sings. As if anyone could in that state of affairs!

Sayin' you got a flight, demand an early nighttime?

No, don't go yet

Looking back at the first single to Familia, which came out while Mendes and Cabello were very much still together back in July 2021, some bubbles issues seem clear. Namely, again, Mendes's piece of work getting in the way of their human relationship. Information technology's cipher red-flag status … maybe just a xanthous ane?

And I go along having these thoughts, did nosotros fuck it upwards or not?

Did we waste two years?

And did you go the space you needed?

Did you realize you don't need me?

Cabello slows things downward on Familia'south closer, a song about the oh-too-relatable feeling of looking for your ex at an consequence. "I just had this vision of you lot looking at me different / When you saw this dress," Cabello sings, setting up her own worries that their breakup was a fault. She digs further in the second poesy, wondering if she threw away 2 years with Mendes (from around July 2019 to November 2021) — or, worse, if he doesn't experience the same way almost how things concluded. "Hey, did you realize you don't need me?" she echoes at the end of the song. Talk about a bewilderment! Pass the tissues.

All the Hot Breakup Details on Camila Cabello'due south Familia