Camila Cabello Reunites With Fifth Harmony Bandmate Normani: 'It Doesn't Feel Like We're Strangers'

Singer Camila Cabello says she’s rebuilding her friendship with her Fifth Harmony “sister,” Normani.

The “I Luv It” star shocked the pop world when she departed the girl group 8 years ago this December. Now, she is slowly reconnecting with the “Wild Side” performer while giving thanks to time and space for their reconnection.

In a new interview, Cabello, 27, reflects on her time with Normani as Fifth Harmony group mates and admits that many of the clashes she had with the members of the X Factor USA quintet came from severe anxiety.

“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,” the C, XOXO vocalist realized.

“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,” Cabello continued.

“Those are skills you don’t have when you’re [just] 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?”

With this reflective mindset, she can now see Normani, who she linked up with at Fashion Week in Paris this September, not as someone to compete with, but as a similarly talented artist in her own right.

“I remember times when we’d just be laughing so hard,” she reminisced with NYLON, adding, “With space, we can go back and tap into that. The past couple of times I’ve seen her, [I’d say] something and she laughs really hard. It doesn’t feel like we’re strangers. [It feels like] we’re getting back to the times when we really close.”

Just two weeks before Cabello’s C, XOXO album release in June, Normani experienced such an event for the first time with Dopamine, her long-awaited debut effort.

In a post on Instagram, she tried her best to voice her feelings about the monumental occasion.

“This album was one of the hardest things in life for me,” Normani wrote. “[I] literally can’t even entirely verbalize my appreciation [at] this moment because of how overwhelmed my heart is in the most magical way.”

Knowing exactly how she felt, Cabello left supportive words in a comment beneath the post.

“Putting out a project is vulnerable and hard and you are doing it beautifully,” she shared. “Congratulations on your first album and many more to come!”

Though she received mostly favorable reviews for the project, Cabello’s C, XOXO album failed to find its way with listeners, peaking at. No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Cabello claims her self-association with Brit pop sensation Charli XCX possibly hindered the album from finding its audience.

“I said [the album has] ‘elements of hyper-pop,” a genre often related to the “Guess” singer, whom Camila notes as a “favorite” of hers.

“I hate that I said that because people ran with this thing before the album was even out. 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.”

Ultimately, Cabello blames herself for the public failure of C, XOXO – and social media.

“I think I was on the internet too much,” she noted. “And that really hurt me, [so] I got off the internet.”

While surely no bomb, C, XOXO received waves of support from Cabello’s fans, and two major female players in the music world.

The first, the singer alleges, was none other than “Queen Bey” herself, who she met at an industry white party over the summer.

“I’m going to sound name-drop-y, [but] Beyoncé told me she loved my album, OK,” Cabello claimed with a laugh.

“That’s the gold star. And I walked away fully, like, tears brimming in my eyes. She’s somebody I’ve watched from my childhood.”

The other was Taylor Swift, who Cabello considers a personal friend.

“[Beyoncé] and Taylor saying nice things about the album really meant a lot to me,” she shared.

“Anytime an artist I respect has, ‘Hey, I really love what you’re doing,’ it recharges my battery.”

As reported here on The Blast, Cabello recently took a short break from the internet just hours after her ex, Shawn Mendes, dropped his self-titled project this month.

Wisely choosing not to bring him up by name in her interview, Cabello instead dove into the basis of how an “intimate” standout from C, XOXO, “June Gloom,” themed around someone she had some private fun with.

“I wrote it so fast because to me, everything is so personal. I was like, ‘I’m writing this for you, b-tch!’”

After a pause, she realized "b-tch" could allude to a potential situation with another woman.

“Can we say, ‘It’s about you, motherf*cker,’ [instead]?” she asked.