Sabrina Carpenter, Camila Cabello, and Shawn Mendes Brought Tension to the VMAs

Camila Cabello and Sabrina Carpenter have both hinted at the love triangle on recent songs, Carpenter in “Taste” (“I heard you’re back together and if that’s true / You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you”) and “Coincidence” (“Last week, you didn’t have any doubts/ This week, you’re holding space for her tongue in your mouth/ Now shе’s sendin’ you some pictures wеarin’ less and less/ Tryna turn the past into the present tense”) and Cabello in “June Gloom” (“She’s cool, I heard/ Won’t act surprised, I saw the pictures/ We’re a house fire, for sure/ Hope it’ll burn out, but it just gets bigger…/ If she’s so amazing, why are you on this side of town? If you like her so much, what are you here trying to find out?”).

Carpenter was up next, singing a medley of her three current hits, including “Taste.” To really drive home the love triangle theme, Carpenter hit the stage with an astronaut and an alien, which makes more sense when you see it, trust me. She essentially recreated her music video, with the alien standing in for Jenna Ortega’s character.

Cabello hit the stage last, though even as she arrived, she was ready to make a statement. On the red carpet, she told Billboard of her sheer lace look, “I’m in my ‘Godspeed’ era, and that song is very much about letting go of everything that does not serve you. So I kind of am having a funeral today for just everything that is negative, everything that doesn’t serve me … death to the things that are negative, death to the people and the situations that try to bring you down.”

She opened her performance with a clip of her song “June Gloom,” however she quickly cut to “Godspeed,” a true breakup anthem. “And I hope you find some peace,” she sings. “Godspeed.”