Camila Cabello

Lore & Background

In the mythology of the Ed Sheeran universe, every collaborator is a different key that unlocks a new room in the house. Camila Cabello is the key that opens the door to the rooftop at midnight: the sky is wide, the air is hot, and the melody refuses to stay in the garden. Her voice on "I Don't Care" doesn't blend into Ed's; it argues with it, lifts it, and then lets it fall back down. Fans who grew up on her Fifth Harmony days and then followed her solo breakout with "Havana" recognized something in that interplay — a singer who had already proven she could carry a track alone, choosing instead to trade blows with a man who usually carries everything himself. The production behind their work leaned on the Max Martin / Shellback machine, which gave the track a polished, stadium-ready sheen that contrasted with Ed's more stripped-back solo material. In the fan-encyclopedia's taxonomy, this places Camila in the "pop-crossover duet" category alongside his work with other big-voice artists, but with a distinct flavor: the Cuban melodic sensibility she carries gives the harmony a lilt that purely Anglophone duets tend to lack. There is a persistent fan theory — never confirmed, never denied — that the two artists were exploring additional material around the same period. Whether that was a single, an album feature, or simply a studio conversation that didn't reach release, the ambiguity keeps the "what if" alive in fan communities. What is certain is that the one track they did release became a shared cultural moment: a song people sang at weddings, at drive-thru windows, at the back of their minds for months.

In Their Own Story

The studio in Stockholm was already dark when the last take wrapped. Max had gone home an hour ago; the engineers had packed their headphones into a duffel bag. Ed was still sitting cross-legged on the carpet, guitar across his knees, humming a line he wasn't sure he'd keep. Camila was in the vocal booth, still in her headphones, eyes closed, mouthing words to a song that didn't exist yet. She opened the intercom. "You're going to play that part in G, right?" He nodded. She laughed — that low, slightly nasal laugh that fans on YouTube would later clip into a thousand reaction videos. "Then I'm not going to match you. I'm going to go up. You'll hate me for it." He smiled. "I'll probably love it." The tape was still rolling. Neither of them turned it off.

Reader's Guide

Camila Cabello's role in Ed's sound is that of the counterweight. Where his vocal identity is soft, mid-range, and conversational, hers is operatic in its reach and unapologetically loud. On "I Don't Care," she doesn't harmonize in the traditional sense; she takes the melodic lead in the chorus while Ed drops into a lower, rhythmic pocket. The effect is a call-and-response that feels like two people talking over each other at a dinner party — except it's a stadium, and the dinner party is on fire. The track she most shaped is, of course, "I Don't Care" itself, the lead single from No.6 Collaborations Project. Its production, handled alongside Max Martin and Shellback, gave it a four-on-the-floor pulse that sits in a different gear from Ed's usual acoustic pop. Camila's phrasing — the way she stretches vowels, the way she lets a note ring before dropping an octave — is the thing that makes the song feel like a pop record rather than a folk-pop ballad with a beat. The dynamic behind the partnership, as fans read it, is one of mutual respect between two artists who each had a solo hit cycle in the same year. Ed was riding the tail of his own global run; Camila had just broken out with "Havana." Neither needed the other commercially. That freedom, fans argue, is why the duet feels risk-free and playful rather than calculated. A memorable behind-the-scenes note that circulates in fan forums: the two reportedly recorded their parts in separate sessions and only came together for the final mix, meaning the "conversation" in the song is actually two solo performances edited to interlock. Whether that's fully accurate or a studio legend, it fits the mythology perfectly — two voices that never needed to be in the same room to sound like they were arguing across a kitchen table.

Did You Know?

• "I Don't Care" was co-produced by Max Martin and Shellback alongside Ed Sheeran, giving it a distinctly different production palette from his solo albums.
• Camila Cabello was born in Havana, Cuba, and her melodic phrasing on the duet carries a Latin pop sensibility that sets it apart from Ed's typically Anglophone collaborations.
• The track appeared on No.6 Collaborations Project, Ed's 2019 album dedicated entirely to featuring other artists rather than his own solo material.
• Before her solo career, Camila was a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, meaning fans of both artists often trace a shared timeline of pop-group energy meeting solo-artistic freedom.