Camila Cabello Apologizes for Past Racist and Offensive Tumblr Posts: ‘I’m Deeply Ashamed’
Camila Cabello is taking responsibility for her previous use of racist and problematic language on social media.
On Wednesday (December 18), the pop star shared a lengthy statement via her Instagram Story about using offensive and hurtful words in the past.
"When I was younger, I used language that I’m deeply ashamed of and will regret forever," the former Fifth Harmony singer wrote.
Now 22, Cabello added, "I’m an adult and I’ve grown and learned and am conscious and aware of the history and the pain it carries in a way I wasn’t before.”
Over the years, many people have confronted Cabello about her previous use of racist language (including the N-word) from when she was a teenager.
She called herself "uneducated and ignorant" for using the language, and admitted she is "deeply embarrassed" that she ever used it.
The controversy surrounding the singer's past racist behavior reemerged this week as screenshots of a number of Cabello's old, offensive, since-deleted Tumblr posts resurfaced on Twitter, which likely prompted the artist to issue her statement.
See Cabello's full apology, below:
Earlier this year, Cabello's boyfriend, pop star Shawn Mendes, found himself embroiled in his own controversy surrounding the use of racist language in the past, which was posted on his Twitter in 2013.
Despite blaming the posts on a "friend" who was allegedly posting to Mendes' account as a joke on his phone, he apologized, saying during a live fan Q&A, "I apologize for everything insensitive I said in the past."
In 2017, Cabello's former Fifth Harmony bandmate Normani Kordei opened up about being victimized by vile racist language, including the N-word, from cyberbullies on social media.
During her season competing on Dancing With the Stars, she revealed, "I got bullied, terribly, on social media. I did an interview and it got taken out of context completely… people were calling me the N-word, it was really ugly. Every time I went online it was, 'How much we hate you. How talentless you are!' They actually made images of me being whipped, beaten, hung… I shouldn't want to change the color of my skin or the texture of my hair or the fact that I'm a woman. I felt really alone and just like everybody hated me."