Camila Cabello reveals why she's tight-lipped about her relationship with Shawn Mendes

Singer-songwriter Camila Cabello opened up about her relationship with fellow singer Shawn Mendes for the first time.

The 22-year-old singer, who has been sparking romance rumours with Mendes, reflected upon her personal life in her cover story for Elle's Women in Music issue, reported E! News.

Cabello opened up about the need to protect her relationship with Mendes, especially with so much speculation surrounding the dynamic duo.

"Love is the most sacred, precious thing to me. I want to always feel like my love is between me and that person, and never belonging to anyone else," Cabello told Elle.

"As much as I love my fans, and as much as I love people, I like to live my life as normally as possible. In a relationship, it makes me feel uncomfortable to invite everyone in on that," she added.

Addressing the relationship speculation, Cabello said, "I don't know, people can say whatever they want to say. They can speculate, but at the same time, we are going to live our own lives, enjoy it, and fall for each other like nobody is watching."

"That is how I want to live. I never want to open the door for people to feel like they are involved. Like I said, I want it to be mine and his. That's why I'm so tight-lipped about it, because I want to protect it," she added.

The singer also spoke to Elle about working with Mendes, sharing, "I mean, I love him. We have always connected, we have the best time together. Shawn texted me the idea for the chorus for 'Senorita.' He was like, 'Hey, what if we work on this and do it together?'"

"I was on the Taylor Swift tour and hadn't been in the studio for a while. I didn't want to do it, and then a few months later, I couldn't get the song out of my head," Cabello continued.

Eventually, Cabello accepted Mendes' offer, but she was almost too late.

"I finally told him, 'I think we should do this.' He was like, 'I don't want to do it anymore.' It went back and forth for, like, eight months. Then we finally went into the studio and reworked it so we both felt good about it, without any pressure. I love working with him so much," she said.

The two sparked romance rumours in June when they released their steamy music video of their song 'Senorita', which premiered just a few days before the news of Cabello's breakup from her boyfriend Matthew Hussey broke.

Mendes and Cabello were spotted getting cozy for the first time while attending a 4th of July party together. They have been inseparable since then, with Cabello attending several of her beau's tours and concerts. The rumoured couple also performed together at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards in August.

"Shawn and Camila started off as just friends, which they have been for years, but the more time they spent together, the more they started having feelings for each other," a source previously told Us Weekly of their budding romance.