How Camilla Cabello is finding her own time and space – with the help of boyfriend Shawn Mendes

Camila Cabello has had a busy year, from performing at the MTV Video Music Awards to attending the Met Gala to starring in a live-action Cinderella to working on her third studio album, Familia (out later this year).

In a new cover profile for Glamour, Cabello says it's almost as wildly busy as she was prior to the pandemic, which is what helped realize she needed to rein in her schedule to begin with.

“I by no means am trying to complain,” she says, “but it was such a thing of, ‘I have to get onstage tomorrow and I’m performing at this big thing,’ or whatever. ‘I want to do a good job. How do I do that when I feel nervous?’ I did this without being like, ‘Am I even happy right now? Do I even feel healthy?’ I didn’t have the space to ask myself those questions. I’m still working a ton now, but after quarantine I’m able to be like, ‘You know what? Right now I’m just not happy. I need to change something.’”

Now, Cabello goes to therapy regularly after changing up her therapist and finding one that works better for her, and she's always got at least one day off a week. And when it comes to her new album, she worked with a smaller team, giving her more space to speak up when she needed to.

“It’s the most grounded and calm I’ve ever been making an album,” she says. “I worked with people I wanted to have dinner with, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to write every single day for months, but write a few days a week and have time to gather experiences and be a human being.’”

It helps that boyfriend Shawn Mendes also goes to therapy – not that they've ever gone together or considered couples therapy, though they do work on their mental health together.

“For better, for worse, we’re very transparent with each other. I think that’s why we can trust each other so much, because it’s a very 3D human relationship,” she says. “I’ll be venting or ranting about something, and he’ll be like, ‘Have you talked to X about it?’ And I’ll be like, ‘No. I’ve got to do a session.’ And he’ll do the same thing to me. I think even just the language of being like, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that I’ve been distant with you or snappy with you. I’m just struggling and I’m feeling kind of anxious.’ That level of transparency really helps a lot.”

Also speaking to Glamour, Mendes adds, “Camila and I give each other an extreme amount of patience and understanding. I think the truth is that when you’re struggling with mental health, it turns you sometimes into the version of yourself that you don’t like to be—and kind of loving and accepting your person through that, and being there for them through that, is life-changing. We give each other so much space and understanding and patience.”

An instance where Mendes helped Cabello out? When Cabello was nervous meeting new people at a recent after-party.

“I have this pattern of eating a lot when I’m anxious or uncomfortable,” she says. “It’s a comfort thing for me. I’ll just kind of become unconscious and zombie-eat a lot, and then I’ll feel sick. I’ve told Shawn about that. So at the VMAs party, I was like, ‘I’m doing it.’ And he was like, ‘It’s okay. You’re doing it. That’s okay. Let’s just take a breath and not do that.’ It’s really good for me to be able to talk about my patterns with someone.”

That openness is what led to her July TikTok video in which she declared a key mantra: “Being at war with your body is so last season." It racked up over 4.8-million likes and made Cabello a body-positive figure for her many fans – and kept mental health an easier conversation than ever for a new generation.

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