The row between Fifth Harmony and former member Camila Cabello took a new twist as the band said they had been “truly hurt” by her actions.
The girl group posted a lengthy statement explaining the circumstances surrounding Camila’s departure on Monday, claiming they learnt she was quitting a month ago and she had refused to attend group counselling sessions.
It comes after Camila, 19, said she was “shocked” at the way her former band-mates announced her departure and denied telling them she was quitting through her representatives.
In a new statement posted on their official Twitter page, Fifth Harmony said: “Over the past several months we have consistently made every effort to sit down and discuss the future of Fifth Harmony with Camila.
“We have spent the past year and a half (since her initial solo endeavour) trying to communicate to her and her team all of the reasons why we felt Fifth Harmony deserved at least one more album of her time, given the success of this past year that we’d all worked so hard for.
“We called for group meetings which she refused, we asked L.A. Reid and the label to step in and try to set meetings, which again, she refused. We even went as far as group counselling which she did not show up to. So no, after months of rejection from her and her team, these supposed lengthy conversations in fact never happened, although we pleaded.
— Fifth Harmony (@FifthHarmony) December 20, 2016
“We have tried with exhausted efforts and hearts to keep this group alive as the five of us, and we want it to be very clear that unfortunately those efforts were not mutual.”
Fifth Harmony said they were told in mid-November through Camila’s manager that she was leaving the group and that their performance on December 18 would be her last with the band.
“We were truly hurt,” they said. “We’ve been together for almost five years, been through ups and downs…. While this isn’t the way any one of us would have wanted this chapter in our lives to have ended, we had to begin to formulate a plan and constructive path for Fifth Harmony to move forward, beyond Camila.
“We truly support anyone’s decision to do what makes them happy and to that end we wish Camila all the best, although saddened by the way she and her team handled the situation.”
Camila has insisted the group, which formed on the US version of The X Factor in 2012, should not have been surprised by her departure as she focuses on a solo career.
She said: “The girls were aware of my feelings through the long, much-needed conversations about the future that we had during tour.
“Saying that they were just informed through my representatives that I was ‘leaving the group’ is simply not true.”
Fifth Harmony’s remaining members – Lauren Jauregui, Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei and Dinah Jane – have insisted they will continue as a four-piece.
