The rumored couple wowed the crowd with performance of 'Senorita.'
Camila Cabello put a lot of prep work into her 2019 MTV VMAs experience!
In a recently released video from Vogue, the magazine followed the 22-year-old singer around as she prepped for her time at the annual awards show, which took place at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Monday.
The outlet first caught up with Camila four days before the show at a fitting, where she showed off her three VMAs looks -- the white, Balmain dress she wore on the red carpet, the white, sexy party dress she sported during her "Senorita" performance with Shawn Mendes, and her loose olive green after-party look.
"This one really stuck out to me because it's just very romantic, which is where I kinda am in life right now," she said of her red carpet dress, seemingly referencing her rumored romance with Mendes, 21. "... I really like it. I'm actually so excited. This is my favorite red carpet dress I've ever worn so far... I feel like it's perfect for the summer and it's actually just how I want to feel on the carpet."
For her performance look, her team was inspired by the outfits int very sexy video that she and Mendes put out for the song.
"They took inspiration from 'Senorita' music video at the end where we're dancing in bar as, you know, people do in a bar, casually," she quipped. "I love it! It's literally like a pearlized version of the video."
When it came to her after-party look -- a loose fitting, mini-dress that was completely different from the other two outfits -- Cabello had some very specific plans in mind.
"I'm going to dance my tush off [in this dress]," she said. "... This is my after-party outfit, which I'm first going to take for a burger at Shake Shack... I love this dress. I actually never wear stuff like this. Like, it's just so kinda just baggy and loose and chill. I love it."
The video then flashed forward to just hours before the start of the show, when Cabello introduced viewers to her small, white dog Eugene Fitzherbert, whose name is a reference to the movie Tangled.
From there it's all about Cabello's hair and makeup, which she got done as she practiced her vocals and explained her pre-performance rituals.
"I like to wake up and listen to something inspiring. I do a lot of, like, breathing. I do a 15 minute meditation. That helps me so much because it helps me from not going [in my head]. It just keeps me, like, releasing the energy," she explained. "... I just saw the dress rehearsal and I saw some parts that I was like, 'Eh. I could've sounded better.' So I'm just, like, listening to it over and over again and trying to just... picture me on stage remembering the things I need to remember."
Cabello shared that she also makes playlists to get her hyped, which include tracks like Madonna's "Material Girl," Janelle Monae's "Make Me Feel," and "Bad Girls" by M.I.A.
As her preparations wrapped up, Cabella revealed how her and Mendes' sexy single came to be.
"It's the first time we're performing the song live, which will be really cool. We haven't performed together for a few years now," she gushed. "It must've been last summer where he sent me the idea for the song and he was like, 'Oh my gosh do you want to do this with me?'"
"And I thought it was super cool. It was literally like a few months of back-and-forth, but I literally lost sleep over it because I was like, 'My God, like, I think I do want to do it. And then maybe I don't,'" she continued. "So there came a point where we were like, 'Let's just go in the studio. Let's just, like, sing it and see how we feel. And if it feels right we do it, if we don't, no pressure it's all good.' We went into the studio and kinda just, like, figured it out and then filmed the video like a week-and-a-half later."
As for the pair's performance, Cabello teased that it'd be "really just kinda simple and real."
"It's just us two and stage and just like beautiful, cozy lights. If I wasn't nervous, I feel like it'd actually make the performance worse. I think when you have nerves and you use them as, like, a fuel and as a fire, it always makes my performance better. It almost make me less nervous," she reasoned. "I just breathe and I basically tell myself, 'You have no choice. You gotta do it. You gotta do it well. You have no choice.'"
Despite those nerves, Cabello said she was feeling "a lot more... in tune" with herself than she did the previous year.
"I just feel less stressed, less self conscious and more just kinda like, I just want to be myself today, you know?" she said. "Just be present and just enjoy my cute outfit."
As Cabello prepared to pose on the red carpet, she got a special visitor -- Mendes himself! The pair shared a flirty moment in her dressing room, before she expressed excitement about him seeing her in her dress.
Following their sexy performance, an eyewitness saw Cabello and Mendes taking their seats super close together, with Mendes' arm placed around Cabello's shoulders. He played with her hair and rubbed her arm while they chatted animatedly and appeared to be in their own world.
Watch the video below for more on the pair.
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