Camila Cabello’s journey to the top of the charts has been anything but ordinary.
The “Havana” singer entered our lives when she auditioned for 2012’s second season of the U.S. version of the X Factor, and emerged from it as a member of Fifth Harmony.
But were it not for a risky early move, the TV talent show, the girl group and the solo career would never have materialized.
On Monday night (April 18), Cabello took a drive with James Corden for the Late Late Show host’s “Carpool Karaoke” segment, and shared tales of her voyage to the U.S. of A.
Cabello was born in Cuba, to a Cuban mom and Mexican dad. When she was aged seven, Cabello crossed the Mexican border with her mom, who “had basically the clothes on her back. Barely any money, did not speak English,” Cabello recounts. “I remember my family saying, ‘you’re going to Disneyworld. I had no idea what was happening.’”
When she arrived Stateside, Cabello had a diary, a Monsters Inc. doll, and not much else.
Her dad was left behind, but later swam across the border, she tells Corden. But he’s didn’t get invited to her 25th birthday. Just because.
Why audition for X Factor and not America’s Got Talent, Corden asks. Cabello, like so many teens, was obsessed with X Factor alum One Direction.
“This is really embarrassing and I can only say this because obviously it’s like 10 years ago but I literally was like, I’m auditioning for X Factor because I will marry Harry Styles. I really believed that at the time,” she quips.
“It wasn’t like marriage,” she adds, correcting herself, but she did figure the pair would “fall in love.”
Cabello and Corden also slammed several songs, including her U.S. and U.K. chart leader “Havana;” “Don’t Go Yet;” “Bam Bam,” lifted from her new album, Familia; and “Liar.”
At the close, Cabello and her British host hit a cover of her fave karaoke number, the Killers’ “Mr Brightside.”
Watch below.
