Geffen/Interscope

Camila Cabello‘s two biggest solo hits are 2018’s “Havana” and 2019’s “Señorita,” a duet with her then-boyfriend Shawn Mendes. But she tells Complex that she got pretty sick of them after awhile.

Asked if she ever got “tired of hearing” those songs, Camila says yes, even though she’s grateful for them both. “More for ‘Señorita’ than ‘Havana’ to be honest,” she tells Complex. “I think there’s always a worry when a song becomes so massive that it’s going to be bigger than you … I obviously love that they were so massive and successful. But it does get people attached to you in a certain light.”

She says, “I was in a really public relationship and as a woman you’re like, ‘I don’t want this couple thing to be my new identity.’”

But given the popularity of those songs, Camila says it was “really frustrating” that some fans’ reaction to “I Luv It,” the first track she released from her new album C, XOXO, was to question whether or not it felt “authentic” to her.

“It’s so ironic,” she tells Complex. “I feel like the inauthentic thing to do would be to give the public what you know is gonna work for you, or what they’re already expecting from you. That’s the easy way: to keep going, like, ‘Oh, you like “Havana,” I’ll give you five more of those.’”

“But, it’s so much more risky and comes from a place of artistic integrity to be like, ‘Well, I’m actually going to depart from the thing that everybody knows and likes about me in order to try things and experiment and evolve as an artist.’”

C, XOXO is out on Friday.

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