Camila Cabello Shares Rare Swimsuit Photo With Book "Papi"

Camila Cabello shares a swimsuit photo of herself in a swimsuit, adding “the book I was reading here is called PAPI. i recommend ! also mandarins and an ice cube. i recommend.” It’s not the first time she’s gotten personal. Cabello has opened up about the challenges she faced while creating her album "Familia." The singer discusses battling crippling anxiety, seeking healing, and finding strength through vulnerability. Cabello's creative process, from journaling to collaborating with trusted friends like Ed Sheeran, emerges as a central theme. Breaking free from industry constraints, she reflects on the pressure to conform after her hit "Havana." Read on to hear more about Cabello's determination to authentically connect through her music, embracing uncertainty and crafting a meaningful, personal narrative.

1. She Got Vulnerable

Her Familia album was inspired by a tough time. “I think that at the beginning of this album, I was having such a hard time mental health wise,” she told Kelly Clarkson. “It was kind of just, I think just crippling anxiety. That was really hard for me. And I started, I feel like because I was in that place, I isolated a lot and I felt like I wasn't really, I don't know. I felt like I wrote this line in my album thank yous, but I felt like I almost needed to be kind of healed or in a better place before I let myself be seen or let myself hang out with people and be vulnerable and be myself.” She added: “I feel like this album to me was me being really trusting people, starting with, obviously it's about my actual real family and the roots of that. But also I feel like the kind of family that I made while making this album and opening myself up to friendships and community. And even with my collaborators in the studio being vulnerable about what I was feeling.”

2. She Journaled

To put the album together, “At the beginning, every day I would write in a journal and then I would just read it to [Travis] Scott and then we'd be like, oh, that's a cool line. I feel like we could write a song based on this lyric or whatever. So the whole thing for me was really, I need to be real and vulnerable with the, while I'm in the studio. Sometimes I felt like even being in the studio, it felt sometimes performative for me. I want to prove that I'm a good writer, I prove that I'm good. And this time for me was all about Scott.” She added: “I feel like that made my favorite music that I've made. And also I feel like they really, my collaborators became my brothers in the studio and starting to be open with people with the collaborators. And in the studio process extended its way into my real life, where suddenly I was like, oh, I could be really anxious and still hang out with my friend and just tell them about my anxiety instead of being like, let me cancel.”

3. She Felt Put in a Box

After her hit “Havana,” producers kept giving her soundalikes. “This is very obvious, first of all,” she told them, as recounted on Clarkson. “And two, I felt like it just felt not authentic. It felt like they were kind of putting me, you're chasing it in this box and chasing it and putting me in this box because it was successful. And so I was like, I think subconsciously I was like, I don't want to do that. And then I think this album came around and in working with Ricky Reed and Scott Harris, Ricky introduced me to this man named Cheche and this writer named Edgar Barrera. And they're actually Latin. One is from Argentina and one is from Mexico. And so actually being in those sessions and being able to be like, okay, what kind of songs should we write today? And then me pulling up a playlist of Alejandro Fernandez, Alejandro Son, Elia Cruz…”

4. She Likes to Work With People She Trusts

“I really only want to work with people that I do feel safe with and I feel I trust and I want to be their friend,” she told Popcrush. “Ed [Sheeran] and I have been friends for a bit now, but obviously he's such a top-tier artist that I was like, I was so excited and so grateful when he said yes to being on the song and that he was so excited about it. And it's been so fun too, getting to, we just performed it together for the first time in the uk and selfishly, it's like I only want to write with people and collaborate with people that I'm stoked to see and hang out with. I feel like in the pop music industry sometimes it can feel so transactional and I just intentionally didn't want it to be that way. This time I was like, I want to hang out and get dinner and have it be what music I feel like started off as is connection and having it be a real connection even artistically.”

5. "You Never Know What's Around the Corner"

The song “Bam Bam”—“for me, it came from, I feel like I finally, life proved to me, life gave me a piece of wisdom just from experience,” she told PopCrush. “And my mom and my grandma had always said to me, you never know what's around the corner. I remember my first breakup with my first partner. I was like, oh no, what have I done? What is this? This is the worst mistake of my life. And then years later you move on and you're like, oh, I'm so glad that this worked out the way that it did. I didn't know that this was going to, there's no way I could have predicted any of these things. And that was a message that I really wanted to put in a song. And life has shown me that time and time again. You just never know what's around the corner. So don't even, it's like the antidote to anxiety because anxiety is like you're trying to control. You're trying to predict what's going to happen. Did I make the right choice? Did I make the wrong choice? It's like you follow your feeling and you just are open to everything. You just never know.”