Camila Cabello has slammed the start of her solo career, which was shrouded in controversy, as a "hellhole and nighmare".
The singer, who is set to make her stage debut at Glastonbury on Saturday, called her early twenties after she left girl band Fifth Harmony as "a f****ng sh*t show."
"[It was] a nightmare and a hellhole at least for me," she added to The Times before adding that her new album "C,XOXO is finally letting go of that now that I'm not feeling so heavy and mentally burdened."
The 27-year-old found fame on The X Factor where she performed as a solo artist at age 15, but after being eliminated in the shows Bootcamp, she got a lifeline when she was then put together with other eliminated solo acts by show boss Simon Cowell to form Fifth Harmony.
The group became one of the biggest girl bands of the 2010s and Cabello was presented as the unofficial lead singer, which didn’t sit well with her bandmates.
Becoming one of the standout performers in the band led to a barrage of accusations from insiders that Cabello was receiving favouritism from management.
However, the attention she received made her the most recognisable and popular of the members and sparked “fan wars” with the group’s followers, many of whom sided with Cabello and trolled the other girls.
Her band member Normani, in particular, now a solo R&B act, suggested that Cabello was unkind to her and that her fans would racially abuse and attack her for being black.
The accusations that Cabello encouraged this by not defending Normani sufficiently, or putting her fans in check for their racist behaviour, still plagues her today but was at its peak during her initial breakaway from the group in her early twenties.
While Normani is now a recording solo artist and has still maintained a fanbase, Cabello is the only band-member to have carved out a globally successful solo career, something which some fans still argue stems from the alleged favouritism from her days in the band.
But the star, who went on to have two huge hit singles Havana and Senorita, featuring ex Shawn Mendes, has managed to become one of pop’s top solo acts and will be one of the biggest acts at Worthy Farm, following this weekend’s headliners, Coldplay, Dua Lipa and SZA.
When asked what people have told her about the iconic festival, which with its 200,000 revellers is set to gather the Cuban-Mexican-American pop star’s biggest ever audience, she has admitted it’s been far from reassuring.
She told The Times sarcastically: "Oh, you know, low-pressure things like, 'This is the biggest moment of your career.'” To which she has shot back: “’Please don't f***ing say that sh*t to me.’"
