What Lauren Jauregui Has Been Up To Since Leaving Fifth Harmony
March 19, 2018 was a tough day for Fifth Harmony fans as the group announced they were going on an indefinite hiatus. This news came less than two years after singer Camila Cabello "left the group" to pursue a solo career. According to Billboard, Cabello had reportedly been wanting to leave the group for some time, so it wasn't really a shock to anyone when it happened.
After Cabello's exit, Fifth Harmony was down to four Harmonizers — Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane, and Lauren Jauregui. With Jauregui and Kordei already having announced projects outside the group, it was only a matter of time before the group's hiatus was announced. "We are all very excited and grateful to be able to take this time to learn and grow creatively and really find our footing as individuals," the group shared on Twitter. "In doing this we are allowing ourselves to gain new experiences, strengths and perspectives that we can bring back to our Fifth Harmony family."
In 2017, before the women went their separate ways, Jauregui was quite active in her solo work, collaborating on hits with Halsey, her then-boyfriend Ty Dolla Sign, and Steve Aoki. Shortly after the group's disbanding, per Pop Crave, it was rumored that Jauregui signed a record deal with Columbia Records. On Oct. 24, 2018, she released her debut solo single, the sultry ballad "Expectations." Now officially a solo artist, Lauren Jauregui took things to a whole other level in 2019.
After Fifth Harmony, Lauren Jauregui began working on her first solo album
In January 2019, Lauren Jauregui released her second solo single, "More Than That," a sassy slow-jam. In the accompanying music video, she played Aphrodite and recreated The Birth of Venus. Later that year, at the Latin Grammy Awards, she gave Entertainment Tonight an update on her first solo album, stating, "The record is coming along incredibly. I've super, super, just kinda been diving into this creative process and really finding out who I am and really working through that. And of course, part of my identity is being Latina from Miami and I grew up speaking Spanglish in my home and Spanish in my home. So naturally the songwriting process, se involucró."
Sadly, 2019 came and went without the release of Jauregui's solo album, but she was still one busy woman. In July 2019, Jauregui performed the classic "You Don't Own Me" at the Montreux Jazz Festival, by Quincy Jones' invitation, on closing night of the festival in honor of his career. She reveled at the moment on Instagram, stating, "Thank you Quincy for thinking of me again and inviting me into your beautiful music family of my dreams. To be in such a beautiful place with such beautiful people singing your classics is an HONOR I will cherish forever."
When COVID-19 turned the world upside down 2020, however, Lauren Jauregui made her voice known in song and through her activism.
Lauren Jauregui introduced her new sound in 2020
In early 2020, Lauren Jauregui launched some new music — and her new sound. In February, Jauregui co-wrote and recorded the song "Invisible Chains" for the Birds of Prey movie soundtrack, which featured a harder rock vibe than her fans were used to hearing from her. That spring, Jauregui also released two Spanish language collaborations with Tainy, "Lento" and "Nada."
While she recorded the music video for her solo hit "50ft." in December of 2019, Jauregui didn't release the eerily timed social distance-themed song until April 2020. Of the song, she opened up about her inspiration in an Instagram post. "I wrote it from a space of reflection on how I interact with the world energetically and this artwork truly encapsulates the feeling of distance spoken about in the song while asserting the closeness of my relationship to my loved ones who hold me the f**k down always and forever in the midst of it all."
But music wasn't the only thing keeping Jauregui busy in 2020, as she was very vocal on social media about the upcoming presidential election. While encouraging her fans to vote, she did create a little controversy with a tweet in which she bashed both 2020 presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. She created some confusion with her initial comments, but did clarify things by stating that "voting Biden is a 'better' option." Lauren Jauregui must have been in a clarifying mood, because she finally revealed how she felt about those long-running Camila Cabello rumors, too.
Lauren Jauregui set the record straight on Camila Cabello
While Lauren Jauregui made her stance on the 2020 election very clear, she also finally set the record straight on the long-running speculation that she and former Fifth Harmony bandmate Camila Cabello were into each other. During an interview on Becky G's En La Sala podcast (via Entertainment Tonight), she revealed the rumors made her extremely uncomfortable, "Like, disgustingly uncomfortable, because I was queer but she was not and it made me feel like a predator. It made me feel like a predator because the types of clips people would put together and the types of stories that people would write and the type of stuff ... I was always the aggressor and I was always the one turning her."
Back in November 2016, Jauregui wrote an essay for Billboard in which she came out, writing, "I am a bisexual Cuban-American woman and I am so proud of it. I am proud to be part of a community that only projects love and education and the support of one another." So the Cabello rumors hit her hard. She went on to say during her Becky G podcast appearance, "I was always the one who was the 'masculine' energy in the scenario and it made me very uncomfortable because that is not how I identify." She insisted that they are "very good friends." Lauren Jauregui can be thankful that she's finally put these rumors to rest, and hopefully she will drop her much-anticipated solo album soon! The Harmonizers are hungry for it.