Camila Cabello Reveals She 'Felt Really Unstable' Amid The Pandemic

Like so many of us, Camila Cabello felt "really unstable" as the COVID-19 pandemic began back in March 2020. For the 24-year-old pop star, life had been non-stop since joining Fifth Harmony in 2012. When the world shut down, Cabello was forced to reckon with her mounting anxiety and relentlessly busy lifestyle.

"Before the pandemic, I felt really burnt out. I had been working pretty nonstop since I was 15. And the rigor with which I started working, there was just no time off," she recalled during a recent interview. "I was barely home. I didn't have time to get to know who I was outside of my career. Pile that onto struggles with mental health, with anxiety, with these toxic levels of stress, it wasn't even a meltdown because I would just work through it."

"I was just exhausted in every way and at that point, I felt like I was running a marathon with a broken leg. I kept going, but it was extremely hard," she continued. "And I wish that I would've just been like, 'Let me just stop for a second and get a nice cast for my broken leg and get some physical therapy.' But I didn't. COVID stepped in and kind of did it for me."

In the days after filming on Cinderella was paused due to the pandemic and Cabello was sent home, she said she "would just break down crying once a day at least" without work to distract her. "I felt so anxious, cripplingly anxious. I just felt really unstable, and I just felt a mess because suddenly, this thing that was distracting me, my work and filming, was not there," Cabello said. "And so I was just left with my anxiety and my mind. And it was getting in the way of my relationship. It was getting in the way of my friendships, my time at home."

As her anxiety worsened, Cabello started to ask for help. "I learned a lot of tools. I tried a lot of different things, different kinds of therapy, meditation, exercise, changing the way I eat, definitely changing the way I schedule my time and making sure that there's balance, that I have time for friendships and connect with people and I'm not just nose to the grindstone, not paying attention to my body and my needs," she shared.

Being forced to slow down was ultimately "life-changing" for Cabello. This felt like the first time since joining Fifth Harmony she had "to cry, to feel the negative emotions without feeling like I had to bury them and perform in five minutes, to be in the same place for more than two weeks because I hadn't been home for such a long time," she explained. "It gave me the gift of finding new hobbies and other things that soothe me," Cabello added.