Lauren Jauregui Says Camila Cabello Dating Rumors Were 'Traumatizing'

Fifth Harmony star Lauren Jauregui is opening up about a "traumatizing" time in the girl group with an honest chat with Becky G on her En La Sala podcast.

The bisexual singer-songwriter came out in 2016 when she was just 20-years-old, but Jauregui says it wasn't quite consensual. A picture of her kissing a girl appeared online and Perez Hilton shared the photo on his publication. 

"I just remember being like 'Oh my God, hopefully, this doesn't blow up,'" Jauregui told G. "And then Perez Hilton outed me in an article and used the picture. And then it went everywhere."

"I was outed and I was like, 'Oh my God this is really traumatizing' and I'm just gonna crawl into a cave for a week and not say anything about it at all. And then I just kind of like was like, 'Okay, it happened, and people know. What am I gonna do?' I wrote that letter to Trump and his supporters for Billboard, and that's where I came out with myself, as myself. I'm owning this, and this is who I am and this is why I feel scared for me and my community right now."

Jauregui was outed to the world before she was out to her family. Lucky for her, her parents were very accepting. 

"My parents valued our relationship more than their proposed beliefs, and I am blessed because most people in Latinx households get kicked out. Most people end up on the street and homeless, because of this fake loyalty to a fake religion that was made up by some people and beat into you and your kids."

Jauregui also addressed those "traumatizing" rumors that she and bandmate Camila Cabello were dating. 

"This is gonna be a controversial acknowledgment but whatever," she said of the 2014 drama. "People thought Camila and I were into each other. And that made me so uncomfortable, like disgustingly uncomfortable because I was queer but she was not."

Fans of the group "shipped" the two divas together, imagining them as a couple even when they said they were not. They even made up a couple name for them; Camren. In the fan fictions they created, Jauregui was usually the aggressor in the relationship, oftentimes convincing Cabello into a romantic relationship.

"It made me feel like a predator because of the type of clips people would put together and the type of stories people would write. I was always the aggressor and I was always the one turning her...I also did not have that connection with her."

"Camila and I were just very good friends at that time. We respected each other, we would talk, we would look at each other, we had love for each other," she said. "I was very affectionate with all of my friends. We would tell each other s*** that yeah maybe you would think we were gay if you were listening over but we weren't. That wasn't the interaction so that actually made me so uncomfortable."

So she had to learn to live with it. "I've learned to just ignore it because it was just so traumatizing for me," Jauregui reflected. "I just chose to ignore it at a certain point because getting angry, to them, would mean that it was real and validated. It really f***ed with my head because I wasn't even comfortable with telling my parents about it. I wasn't even comfortable telling myself that I was queer."

But now, Jauregui is out and proud.

"I am a bisexual Cuban-American woman and I am so proud of it. I am proud to be part of a community that only projects love and education and the support of one another," she wrote in the aforementioned Billboard letter. "I am proud to be the granddaughter and daughter of immigrants who were brave enough to leave their homes and come to a whole new world with a different language and culture and immerse themselves fearlessly to start a better life for themselves and their families."