The messages of Normani’s former bandmate calling her the N-word aren’t real. Camila’s one and only facebook account was under Karla Cabello, her first name and those messages were from an account under Camila Cabello. They were photoshopped by 5H fans that wanted to ruin her image and life and hacked into her iCloud and got unseen pictures of her to go with the photoshopped messages to make everything more believable. Has she said the N-word in the past? Yes, when she was 14/15 and had a fan account for One Direction and the twitter lingo back then was to refer to your friends as “my n****.” She took responsibility for it, learned why you shouldn't say that word and apologized once it was exposed. We all don’t come into this world at that age knowing everything. Other members in that group also have problematic pasts from when they were younger but it doesn’t get constantly brought up like it does with her. One of them won’t even apologize for her offensive comments or jokes but whatever. If those messages checked out to be real then I think the media would have picked up on it to expose her especially since 5H fans were adamant on spreading them to media outlets and someone like Perez who hated her at the time would have had no problem dragging her name, but even he didn’t believe them. Plus, the people who made those up didn’t think everything through as some of them were Camila complaining to her friends that the other girls were jealous of her during X Factor time because she was getting all the solos when it was Lauren who was getting the most singing time back then.
Normani and Camila were very close at one point but the rift happened two years ago most likely due to creative differences and Camila wanting to do solo work outside of 5H because the music they were putting out were just songs handed to them. That interview happened and the fans thought it was funny how Normani only had two things to say about Camila while having loads to say about the others and then media, like Perez picked up on it and it blew up with headlines of Normani being petty and shady. Then those ugly images surfaced on twitter. But simple investigating and tracking of IP addresses, the account was a 5H account posing as a Camila fan account to make her and her fans look bad and change the narrative. Their fans till this day still try to attempt this kind of thing because even though they’ve witnessed how hurt and broken those images made Normani, they’d rather put trying to make someone look bad over someone they claim to love and support feelings. And for why? Because they’re dead set on ruining her former bandmate’s reputation in the industry and her career, but I don’t think that’s panning out too well because anyone who works with Camila sings her praises professionally and personally.
And also Camila is a Cuban-Mexican immigrant that has racist and xenophobic comments thrown at her, death threats, being called the most vile things, spamming her insta with the snake emoji, wishing her Mexican father rapes her, etc. I’ve seen some of those comments get hundreds of retweets too. She was the first one to even speak up about what happened to Normani and told everyone that you don’t need to bring other people down in order to support her and that’s not what she stands for. The other 3 members didn’t say anything in defense of Normani until their fans harassed them on twitter to say something. And none of them have ever said anything to stop the kind of hate Camila gets either. She was clearly unhappy in the group for 2 years and even said she deleted the twitter app from her phone to stop her from lurking because the hate was obviously starting to get to her. The girl is so sensitive and barely stands up for herself because she’s scared of hurting somebody else’s feelings or sparking fans to attack back whoever said something disgusting to her. I don’t think she’d ever wish upon anyone the kind of pain she got through cyberbullying, especially Normani or anyone else in that group. She may have never vocalized how much it affected her like Normani did but you could visibly see it was taking a toll on her.
Every fandom has crazy and intense fans that cross lines but I think for manufactured groups like 5H and 1D it’s heightened to a completely different level. There are rare fans that support all 5 members. Everyone has a favorite and as the years go on and the group starts becoming more successful, it becomes a competition between favorites on who is the most relevant. I feel for all the girls because their fans have a sense of entitlement towards them because they feel they’re the reason for all their success. They forced a sexuality onto Lauren before she was even ready to accept that about herself and then even forced her out of the closet by leaking a personal picture. The group’s brand is feminism and women empowerment yet their fans do the opposite of that and slut shame/body shame any female artist they feel like is a threat to their girls. And then this “feud” between Camila and Normani got blown up to a nasty point because their fans got involved and took it to extremes. But 5H didn’t really help that since they put out contradictory and unprofessional statements in regards to Camila’s departure that placed all the blame on her and encouraged fans to harass her even more. You compare that to the way 1D handled Zayn’s exit, 5H’s statements just screamed mean girls. It’s crazy to me that she is painted as a villain because she wasn’t happy, sought out an opportunity to leave, put herself first, took it and left. I don't get trying to make someone you don't even know look that bad either when it has no direct affect to your life? I mean they’ll be fine as a 4 piece just as she is fine on her own. Everyone is happy and that’s what should matter so move on.
But anyways, good for Normani for getting this opportunity and experience and this time to shine individually outside of her group even if she didn’t win. Seeing comments about people not caring to get to know her or her leaving them cold is a shame because she is a very poised young woman with a lot to offer. Ironically when I was a 5H fan, I loved her friendship with Camila because they were very silly together and Camila brought her out of her shell but things happen. Life takes you down different roads sometimes. There isn’t always a bad person in a breakup either.
