You can't hold a good girl group down, and Fifth Harmony is proof of that. Though the group has whittled down from five to four young women (in December of 2016, Camila Cabello left the group to pursue a solo career), Fifth Harmony continues to be as strong as ever. The group's new single, a collaboration with Gucci Mane titled "Down," had their highest iTunes debut of their careers, and their upcoming third album is one that the entire group says they are thrilled to put out into the universe. Speaking with Refinery29 during a Facebook Live interview, the group explained that they didn't always have the confidence to control their careers — and that there were plenty of external pressures keeping them down. Fortunately, the group has been able to rise above the noise to create something pretty beautiful.
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The girls of Fifth Harmony revealed that they felt a lot of pressure when they found themselves in the spotlight, and during the early days of their stardom sometimes felt that they had to go the road alone.
"I feel like, low-key, to a certain point, we were all going through it alone," Lauren Jauregui admits during the Facebook Live interview. "We were all in our own world, and also, the context of being in a girl group, it's kind of hard sometimes as well because the world pits you against each other whether you want to be or not."
"Everything was so beautiful until people have an opinion about you," Dinah Jane tells Refinery29. "Not only would people in your circle tell you, 'Oh, Dinah, you have to be this, you have to do this,' but for everybody to come into your bubble and say you're this, you're that, it's kind of, in a way, like a bully. But to stand beside three other girls and to know that they are going through the same thing, we were each other's crutch. At that time, I feel that we loved ourselves the hardest, and we took the time to be alone, and to shower ourselves with love. To know that we are worth more than what people are saying about us."
That's not to say that confidence came easy. Ally Brooke reveals she struggled with insecurity, despite being a member of a rising girl group. These days, however, she's more confident than ever:
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"I'm more sure of who I am and for me to say that is a milestone for me, because I just struggled so much with insecurity and finding myself," says Brooke.
When asked how the girls work to advocate for themselves, Normani Kordei says it's all about sticking together.
"I honestly think it's unity," Kordei tells Refinery29.
"If we don't feel comfortable with something, we're united on that," adds Jauregui. "There have been moments when the label will want a certain song to be a single, and it's just not reflective of us, and it's just not who we are, and there's no way we can connect to that. We've had to fight at times, and we've had to be strong. We've had to put our foot down [and say] we're more than this, we're more than what you're trying to submit us to."
"At the end of the day, that's the mark that we're leaving," says Kordei. "It's [about] the last impression and the messaging that we want to leave to the rest of the world."
Check out the entire Facebook Live interview below:
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