Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Her song is sung
Jingle Ball is bittersweet for Fifth Harmony as singer quits.
Fifth Harmony’s crowdpleasing Y-100 Jingle Ball performance Sunday night at the BB&T Center turned out to be the quintet’s last.
Two hours after the chart-topping girl group’s appearance in Sunrise, they announced on their social-media channels that Miami-raised singer Camila Cabello had left the group.
“After four and a half years of being together, we have been informed via her representatives that Camila has decided to leave Fifth Harmony. We wish her well,” the remaining members said in a midnight Instagram post.
The rest of Fifth Harmony — Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane Hansen and Lauren Jauregui — said they would continue as a foursome.
“We are four strong, committed women who will continue with Fifth Harmony as well as our solo endeavors,” the four stated.
Billboard magazine quoted Fifth Harmony insiders as saying there had been tensions brewing between the 19-year-old, Havana-born Cabello and the other members, and that her contract with the group expired on Sunday.
Historians will not file Fifth Harmony’s by-thenumbers performance Sunday night next to the Beatles’ rooftop finale, but let it be said that the passion they inspire is fierce, evidenced by the fingernail-breaking scrum that ensued when the group tossed their jackets into the crowd (revealing Florida Panthers’ jerseys).
With a short set list that included “Worth It” and “Work at Home,” Fifth Harmony was arguably the most energetically received band of the night by a mostly young, female audience (followed by the Chainsmokers and Charlie Puth).
But Sunday’s performance also was notable for its lack of onstage chemistry, each bump and grind delivered with an air of rote obligation. This show marked the end of the Jingle Ball tour, and also a reminder that the members of Fifth Harmony were each a solo act when they were molded into a group by the musical reality show “The X Factor.”
But perhaps it was something more. If there was any sunshine to be found on the stage, it belonged to the smiling, pixyish Cabello.
Not long after Fifth Harmony left the stage, Cabello returned — barely recognizable, having traded her provocative 5H get-up for a classier cocktail dress — to perform “Bad Things” with rapper Machine Gun Kelly, which recently hit the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart.
The duet, which was not part of the original lineup at the Y100 Jingle Ball, played out to nonstop shrieks from Fifth Harmony fans.