Shawn Mendes says it took him five years to realise he was in love with Camila Cabello

Shawn Mendes admits it took five years before he realised he was in love with Camila Cabello.

The ‘Senorita’ hitmaker is now in a relationship with the former Fifth Harmony singer but he has confessed it took him half a decade before he admitted to himself he was in love.

Watching back a clip from a joint interview the couple did in 2015, years before they became an item, Shawn said on The Late Late Show with James Corden: “It’s really hard [to watch it back]. I remember that. I didn’t even accept that I was completely in love with her. Three years after that is when I finally admitted it, and another two years after that was when I decided to do something about it.”

Meanwhile, the 22-year-old singer recently said dating the ‘Havana’ hitmaker has taught him to be less afraid of speaking from his heart and has allowed him to be more “vulnerable”.

He said: “I realised I had a lot of fear as a human … to say how my heart was feeling. I realised when it comes to matters of the heart, we don’t really have to be experts. I thought that I was a pretty open, emotional, guy until I started being in a relationship with someone that I really, truly love and, realising that ‘oh no, I really have this big ego, and I don’t want to show her that I’m hurting and I don’t want to show her that that offended me, and like I want to be the man, and I want to be strong in this relationship.’ It was hurting our relationship, but real strength does lie inside of being emotional and vulnerable.”