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Sabrina Carpenter, Shawn Mendes, and Camila Cabello
Sabrina Carpenter, Shawn Mendes, and Camila Cabello
@sabrinacarpenter, @shawnmendes, @camila_cabello via Instagram
Culture > Entertainment

Wait, Is Shawn Mendes’s “That’ll Be The Day” About Sabrina & Camila?!

Bre McNamara

The love triangle between Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, and Sabrina Carpenter seems to have just gotten a whole lot messier. A few months after Carpenter hinted at her brief fling with Mendes on her Short N’ Sweet album, it sounds like he’s now providing some insight into their short-lived relationship. On Nov. 15, Mendes dropped his new album, Shawn, and it includes the song “That’ll Be The Day,” which has some pretty telling lyrics.

In the song, Mendes sings about “faking sex” while with someone while thinking about another person. He sings, “I could pretend that I have a chance / At another romance, but, honey, in the end / Even if I tried, I’ll be wasting breath / I’ll be faking sex ’cause you’ll be on my mind.”

Now, I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but this song seems to point to the time Mendes and Carpenter were spending time with each other right before he got back together with Cabello. In case you need a refresher, Mendes and Cabello were on-and-off for about four years and even wrote several songs inspired by their relationship, including the 2019 hit “Señorita.” After splitting for the first time in 2021, rumors began circulating that Mendes and Carpenter were dating after they were seen walking around L.A. together in February 2023.

The following month, the singers were seen leaving Miley Cyrus’s album release party together. A few days later, a source told Entertainment Tonight, “Shawn and Sabrina are seeing each other.” However, Mendes later denied dating Carpenter, saying in an interview, “We are not dating, but I think we should talk about Tommy Hilfiger probably more than Sabrina.”

In April 2023, Mendes was spotted with Cabello at Coachella, which seemed to mark the beginning of their rekindled romance. But after a few months together, Mendes and Cabello called it quits again in June 2023.

While Mendes hasn’t revealed who “That’ll Be The Day” is about, he did share what inspired him to write the song during his For Friends and Family Only concert on Nov. 13. “It’s really truly one of my favorites off the album,” he said. “I wrote this song about six months ago now. I was writing about love and I was writing about heartbreak. I feel like after I went through my first real heartbreak, I was completely convinced, for a very, very long time that I was never going to be able to feel love or feel in love with anyone ever again. I realized a part of that was this trap I was putting myself into. This fear of opening myself up to somebody new again. I realize that as I sing this song, sometime I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I agree with that lyric or agree with how I felt back then.’ But I remind myself that’s it’s so important for me to sing these songs.”

Whether or not “That’ll Be The Day” is about Mendes’s love triangle with Cabello and Carpenter, it’s still a great song with lyrics that are pulling at fans’s heartstrings.

BRB, listening to this song on repeat for the foreseeable future.

Bre is the Entertainment Editor at Her Campus. She oversees the entertainment verticals on the site, including celebrities, movies, television, and music coverage. During her college career, Bre was a contributing writer and Entertainment Editor for the Montclair State University chapter of Her Campus. After graduating in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in Communications and Media Arts, Bre worked as a full-time writer at Showbiz Cheat Sheet, where she pitched, edited, and wrote articles covering trending news, movies, television, and celebrities. Bre has also written and conducted interviews for the entertainment site Shadow and Act. When she's not writing, you can find Bre binging 'New Girl' or 'Modern Family' for the millionth time or listening to her assorted Spotify playlist. She also loves spending time with her family and keeping herself busy with a little retail therapy!