This week on Nova’s Smallzy’s Surgery, we chat to Camilla Cabello in her only Australian radio interview for her new music. Camilla talks about ‘Bam Bam’ and her breakup with Shawn Mendes, saying “That was actually great that that happened… otherwise I wouldn’t be where I am now”. Smallzy and Camilla also have an indepth and honest chat about body image and body standard in response to her recent Instagram post about paparazzi following her at the beach.
CAMILLA CABELLO OPENS UP ABOUT HER BREAKUP – “THAT WAS ACTUALLY GREAT THAT THAT HAPPENED… OTHERWISE I WOULDN’T BE WHERE I AM NOW” [2:24]
SMALLZY Give me the Bam Bam story. I want to know how you and Edie teamed up. When did you team up? Was it a zoom session? Was it face to face?
CAMILLA Face to face is how we do it baby. And we I sent him be like kind of demo of the song. And then he like made it a million times better. And you know, it's like, small z. Have you ever been like heartbroken? And then like, you're like, Oh, my God, this is terrible. How am I ever going to recover? And then time passes? And then you're like, wait, that was actually great that that happened? Otherwise, I wouldn't be like, where I am now.
SMALLZY Absolutely. I think everybody can relate to that. How do you process experiences that people in the world think they're intimately familiar with, but they may not know the real story, they may not know how you really feel they may not know the actual truth, but they have their own version of whatever it is, is going on in your world?
CAMILLA Well, it's not even they may not know it's they don't know. I think like the most honest I will ever be about certain situations in my life will be through my music will be because to me that when I'm in the studio, I really make it for myself. And I also think my favourite writing is the most honest and the most detailed, like my favorite songwriters. You know, Taylor Swift has talked about this all the time. Like I think the details are what makes it interesting, and what makes it human. So to me, that's like, the most honest, I will be like not, you know, in interviews or whatever, like about certain things, you know, but to me, I process things, obviously, in my own intimate circles with my friends, my family, my therapist, and that's like, how I process things. And in the actual songs.
SMALLZY Do you ever, like get a great lyric, and go, Oh, this would be fantastic. But you know what, I'm gonna hold that back on. I don't know if that's up for public consumption?
CAMILLA All the time. All the time.
CAMILLA OPENS UP ABOUT BODY IMAGE AND THAT INSTAGRAM POST ABOUT BEING PAPPED AT THE BEACH [4:37]
SMALLZY I'm sure you've spoken about the Instagram post that you put out earlier this week. But I just wanted to commend you on the courage to be so vulnerable and the and the and how brave it was. And if people don't know you just basically listed on Instagram every I think anyone who's ever had anybody issues or a Up self-consciousness, you just listed it out there and I was reading it going, that's me. Like, going to the beach is the most excruciating part has been for me over my entire life. I hate the idea of it, because you're so conscious about what everyone else is thinking. And I just wanted to commend you on putting it out there, because I'm sure you have seen the response to it. But were you shocked with how many people that would have resonated with?
CAMILLA definitely, I feel like I got like an overwhelming amount of support from people. And it's cool to hear you say this too, because, obviously, because I'm a woman, like, I feel like I see these crazy body standards for women. But then like I realized, for men too, like for everybody, it's like….
SMALLZY body standards for women, I think is something that we all can socially agree have been so toxic for so long. But on the other hand, for men, it's something that is ever prevalent in society, we don't really talk about it. And in fact, we have developed language where we still shame, guys, for Dad Bod if you are out of shape, right, like, and somehow it's been misconstrued, I think, as language where we seem to be supportive. But actually what you're saying there is, oh, you're you're out of shape or overweight, but don't worry, we like you because you've got a Dad bod not actually realizing as a guy, what I hear is, don't be fat, you don't want to have a dad bod. That's not desirable. That's just a mechanism to excuse someone who might be out of shape. So then for me, I'm stuck in the situation where I'm like, Well, I'm not taking my shirt off, I'm not gonna go out there and expose myself to that criticism. It's ironically, we are so men and women are so closely aligned on those body shame issues than anyone has ever really spoken openly about.
CAMILLA One of the differences is that I think, like, maybe men don't have the permission to be as vulnerable about it, because there's a lot of shame around expressing vulnerabilities or anxieties and insecurity, and like that, like toxic masculinity thing. But yeah, I got so much support from it. And for me, like, it's like, yeah, it's been so, so present in my life, like the past few years, as my body changes, my metabolism changes. And it's just like, a lot of pressure. Because it's like, to me, if I go to the beach, like with my friends or family, like, I mean, I'm fortunate that I'm like, I didn't have self consciousness about that. But it's like, when I started going to the beach, and there was like, a million, paparazzi there. And then I saw the pictures, like the day after, and I don't even look at what people really say about me on purpose, but sometimes I just stumble upon it. And me like therapy, I have to like, book a therapy session and talk about it, because I feel so insecure, and then I get myself to a good place. And then I would go to the beach three weeks later. And same thing, like, you know, it's just like, it's, it's, it's exhausting. And I think that for everybody. And not just women. It's like we live in such a exhausting time because there's pictures everywhere. There's always it's just always, you can't just go to the beach and be present.
SMALLZY And you're always I don't know about you. You're always not good enough.
CAMILLA Yeah I think it's also my intention. And posting that too is like, you are maybe seeing a picture of whatever, some person that looks amazing at the beach, some celebrity and then you look in the mirror and you're like, oh my god, like, Oh, I wish I could be like them, whatever. But what you don't know is that person that you thought looked amazing in those pictures literally sucked in so tight they couldn't breathe. They didn't have a fun time. They didn't eat the meal that they wanted.
SMALLZY They spent the whole day hungry.
CAMILLA Exactly and then it's like, why are we not talking about the fact that this is just impossible for everybody? This is impossible.
