Fifth Harmony Thinks Shading Camila Cabello Was Important, Explain Album Name

Following Fifth Harmony’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, all people could talk about is how they shaded their former group member, Camila Cabello. Although the group insisted they never intended on making a big deal out of the shady moment, they admitted that they weren’t necessarily sorry about it.

During a chat on the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, the group revealed that they didn’t want their performance at the award show be based on Cabello, but felt that addressing the split on stage was something they needed to do.

“I couldn’t say that was necessarily the intention because I feel like the whole performance was just a creative capture of our story -- from beginning to end, there’s so many different elements that told that story,” Lauren Jauregui explained.

The “Down” singer admitted that even though many people seemed to be stuck on the shade, the attention they were getting after their performance wasn’t all bad.

“So I don’t know if we particularly thought that people would only focus on that, but it was an element that was important to our storytelling, so … it’s cool that people talked about it. Hey, if people were talking about our performance that’s what matters, right?” she added.

While speaking with AOL’s “Build,” the ladies also revealed why they decided to come out with a self-titled album. Although it may seem like the foursome put a lot of thought into the album name, they admitted that they didn’t come up with it until a week before it was released.

“We were trying to figure out exactly what to call it. We had the whole album all set and done and our management was texting us and saying, ‘Hey, this needs to be finalized. We need to know today.’ We could not figure out a perfect name or a title that would really resonate or something that we were happy with,” Normani Kordei explained.

The “Angel” singer then revealed that she was the creative mind behind the album’s name. “So I suggested, ‘Hey girls, why don’t we just do a self-titled album?’”

Unlike previous albums, the ladies were more involved in their latest project. “This is the first time around that we were able to be creative and we genuinely feel like it’s from our hearts to your ears and we’ve had so many ideas,” Kordei said.

In the past, the singer revealed that the group was constantly told that they could not contribute creatively to their music.

“Yes we’re women but we’re also artists and we never want that to be forgotten and it’s really cool because we actually proved that to ourselves as well. We’ve had ideas and we wanted to be creative for so long but being told, ‘No you’re not able to’ or ‘you’re not good enough,’ it kind of messes with your mentality and mental space and confidence in what it is you’re able to do.”

However, with their third album, traditions have changed and they are in a better place. “So it was really cool to get our power back and really love music again and it made us even closer,” she explained.

Going forward, it looks like Fifth Harmony is committed to making sure their voices are heard and portrayed in music that they can relate to.