Some couples break up once. Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello broke up, kissed at a music festival, tried again and broke up a second time, and the internet has never quite stopped asking whether there will be a third act. When this site first wrote about them in May 2023, the paparazzi photos looked like a reunion in progress. Three and a half years later, the answer is clear, and I find it gentler than any of the rumors.
Friends first, for a long time
They met as teenagers in 2014, both opening for Austin Mahone on tour, and a year later recorded their first duet, “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” For the next few years they were collaborators and close friends, and nobody seriously suggested anything more. I like this part of the story best, honestly: two kids from very different places (Mendes from Pickering, Ontario; Cabello from Havana by way of Miami) figuring out fame in the same tour bus aisle.
“Señorita” and the summer of 2019
Everything changed with “Señorita” in June 2019. The video cast them as lovers in a sweaty roadside diner, the song went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Within weeks they were photographed kissing in public, and by the end of that summer they were plainly a couple.
They followed it with a cover of “The Christmas Song” that December, spent the 2020 lockdown together in Miami and joined a Black Lives Matter march there in June 2020. Whatever you think of celebrity couples, this one did the unglamorous things together too.
Was it a PR romance?
The doubt followed them from day one. The theory went that a hit duet plus a real-life romance was a very convenient marketing plan, and every red-carpet appearance was read as evidence. I understand the cynicism; Hollywood has earned it. But a PR arrangement rarely survives a pandemic, a shared kitchen and two and a half years. My read is simpler: they fell for each other on the job, which is how plenty of non-famous people meet too.
Before Cabello, Mendes was linked to Hailey Baldwin, now Hailey Bieber; the two walked the 2018 Met Gala together. He was also asked for years whether he was gay, and kept answering that it was nobody’s business. In October 2024, at Red Rocks in Colorado, he went further, telling the crowd he was “just figuring it out like everyone” and calling the speculation “such an intrusion on something very personal to me.” Fair enough.
The 2021 breakup and the Coachella kiss
On November 17, 2021, both posted the same statement on Instagram: they had “decided to end our romantic relationship,” had started as best friends and would stay best friends. Mendes later released “When You’re Gone” about the split and said Cabello had heard it months before anyone else.
Then came Coachella. On April 14, 2023, the exes were filmed kissing in the crowd, and through May they were seen together around Los Angeles. That is the moment our old headline caught. It did not last: by June 2023 they had split again.
Cabello explained it on Call Her Daddy in 2024: “It wasn’t even a decision, I think you are just kind of like, ‘Yeah this doesn’t really—it’s not a fit. It doesn’t feel right.'” She called the attempt a “fun moment,” said “I personally think it’s helpful,” and that she will always care about him. It is the most grown-up breakup quote I have read from a pop star, and I have read a lot of them.
Where they are in 2026
They were spotted at the Copa América final in Miami in July 2024, which set off one more round of “back together?” posts, but nothing came of it. In a November 2024 Apple Music interview Mendes said, “I think we haven’t been the closest over the last couple of years, but I think we really know each other.”
Since then both have moved on. Cabello dated Henry Junior Chalhoub, a Chalhoub Group heir, from late 2024; they split in June 2026 after more than a year together, according to TMZ and People, with no comment from either. Mendes was linked to Brazilian actress Bruna Marquezine from December 2025, and on August 4, 2026 he made it official, wishing her a happy 31st birthday on Instagram: “Feliz aniversário my baby.”
@shawnmendes Feliz aniversário my baby 🪽♥️
You are a light and a mãe in every room you walk into. Not to be tooooo sappy but you’ve truly changed my life and I am so so grateful for you. Eu te amo muito muito muitoo!!! We all do amor… & thank you @casaamarelaprovidencia…
So, are Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello dating again? No. They tried twice, they said so in their own words both times, and they have both gone on to other people. Our 2023 headline asked about a sweet couple; the sweeter thing, to me, is two exes who still speak about each other with real warmth, without a single passive-aggressive lyric. Well, almost without.
Sources
- Shawn Mendes on Instagram, September 2026
- Shawn Mendes, Instagram: birthday post for Bruna Marquezine, Aug 4, 2026
- Shawn Mendes, Instagram (@shawnmendes)
- Camila Cabello, Instagram (@camila_cabello)
- Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, “Señorita”, official music video
- Entertainment Tonight: Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes split after 2 years (joint statement), Nov 17, 2021
- E! News: Shawn Mendes on “When You’re Gone”
- NBC Los Angeles: Cabello and Mendes spotted kissing at Coachella, April 2023
- Marie Claire: Camila Cabello on Call Her Daddy about the second breakup, 2024
- NBC News: Shawn Mendes says he is still figuring out his sexuality, October 2024
- Billboard: Shawn Mendes on Camila Cabello, Apple Music interview, November 2024
- TMZ: Camila Cabello splits from Henry Junior Chalhoub, Jun 3, 2026
- Reality Tea: Shawn Mendes goes public with Bruna Marquezine, Aug 5, 2026
