Camila Cabello gave a haunting performance at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards that appeared to be directed at ex-boyfriend Shawn Mendes, who was in attendance.
The 27-year-old singer took the stage at the UBS Arena on Wednesday, September 11, in New York to perform one of her 2024 hits — but not “June Gloom” as fans predicted.
Cabello began the performance by watching a video of herself with blonde hair singing the first verse of “June Gloom” before she revealed her updated brunette locks on stage. She then went into a touching rendition of “Godspeed” from the inside of a recording booth as masked dancers with baseball bats tried to break in. Both songs are seemingly about her on-off relationship with Mendes, 26.
She slammed the laptop to the ground before singing the final verse, “I let you go, and I feel more like me / I wish you well, but far away from me / Godspeed.”
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Earlier in the broadcast, Mendes performed “Nobody Knows,” which is also rumored to be about Cabello. Sabrina Carpenter, who reportedly romanced Mendes during a 2023 break from Cabello, also took the stage on Wednesday with a mashup of “Taste” and “Espresso.”
Cabello, for her part, previously teased that “June Gloom” got its title from a “weather phenomenon” that “happens in certain parts of the world.” She told Nylon in June that the term describes foggy days where it feels “like you’re in a cloud.”
“One time, I had the always-brilliant idea of reconnecting with this ex,” she said of the song’s story line. “And we decided to take what was an innocent walk on this beach with a bottle of alcohol.”
The track begins with Cabello singing, “June gloom, tule fog / I might as well say, ‘Meet me in Montauk’ / Cold beach, you walk / I feel my body scream when you talk.”
She then details a separate hookup, hinting that the ex she mentions was with someone new before they reconnected on the East Coast. “She’s cool, I heard / Won’t act surprised, I saw the pictures / We’re a house fire, for sure / Hope it’ll burn out, but it just gets bigger,” Cabello sings.
In the pre-chorus Cabello asks, “If she’s so amazing / Why are you on this side of town? / If you like her so much / What are you here tryna find out?”
The song, which is off Cabello’s fourth studio album, C, XOXO, raised eyebrows with fans as it appears to follow Cabello and Mendes’ relationship timeline. It also hints at Mendes’ rumored romance with Carpenter.
Cabello and Mendes originally dated from 2019 to 2021. Mendes was then linked to Carpenter, 25, in early 2023 after they were spotted having dinner in Los Angeles that February. Carpenter and Mendes were also seen leaving a release party for Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation together in March 2023.
Mendes, however, claimed that same month that he and Carpenter were “not dating.” In April 2023, Mendes and Cabello were spotted kissing at Coachella.
The pair’s reconciliation was short-lived. Us Weekly confirmed in June 2023 that Mendes and Cabello had parted ways, with a source claiming, “Camila was the one who ultimately decided to end things.”
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Their breakup in summer 2023 matches the story Cabello sings about in “June Gloom” although she has not revealed the identity of the ex-boyfriend mentioned in the song.
Carpenter, meanwhile, seemed to confirm her fling with Mendes in several songs on her latest album, Short n’ Sweet. Listeners have theorized that “Coincidence” in particular is about Mendes as the song talks about a guy who gets back together with an ex shortly after splitting from the song’s leading lady.
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“The second I put my head on your chest / She knew, she’s got a real sixth sense,” Carpenter sings on the first verse. “Now her name comes up once, then it comes up twice / And without her even bein’ here, she’s back in your life / Now she’s in the same damn city on the same damn night.”
Carpenter fueled the romance rumors even more with her opening track “Taste” and it’s accompanying music video costarring Jenna Ortega as the other woman. (Cabello is currently blonde, but she was brunette when she dated Mendes.)
“I heard you’re back together and if that’s true / You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you / If you want forever, I bet you do / Just know you’ll taste me too,” Carpenter quips.
