卡米拉·卡贝洛横扫欧洲音乐奖

U.S. singer Camila Cabello swept the MTV Europe Music Awards on Sunday, winning best song with her hit “Havana” as well as best artist and best video.

“This year has been the best of my life,” the 21-year-old Cuban native said at the event in Bilbao, northern Spain.

Cabello had opened the show hosted by U.S. actress and singer Hailee Steinfeld with a rendition of her Latin-influenced “Havana.”

She is fresh from winning prestigious prizes at the MTV Video Music Awards in August — artist of the year and video of the year — after her album “Camila” reached the top of U.S. charts in January.

The audio version of “Havana,” which features rapper Young Thug, has had more than 1.3 billion hits on YouTube. The former member of the band Fifth Harmony was also named best pop artist at last year’s MTV Europe Music Awards.

Cabello had six nominations, followed by five each for singer Ariana Grande and rapper Post Malone and Canadian artist Drake and Britain’s Dua Lipa with four.

Cabello was born in Havana to a Cuban mother and Mexican father and lived between the two countries until her mother brought her to Miami when she was almost 7.

Despite being one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Camila thinks it was an unlikely career path for her to follow because she was always shy growing up.

The 21-year-old singer, who was christened Karla, believes she was able to create a new confident persona when she used her second name Camila for her stage moniker.

Revealing that she chose the title before her “X Factor USA” audition at the age of 15, she explained: “They asked if I wanted a stage name, and I said Camila because I hated my name. I hated Karla. It was like this rebirth. I got to create myself again. I was Camila, and then suddenly I didn’t have to be this shy girl in the classroom ... I always hear stories of people who became singers and musicians who put on shows for their families when they were very young or were the class clown or always singing in class, and people saw it coming for them. I don’t think people saw this coming for me.”

However, her shyness is still something she is affected by now, even with her millions of adoring fans and astronomical sales and streaming figures.

Cabello is happy to talk about her family’s experiences of coming to the United States because she thinks it matters to hear human stories.

At the Grammys in January, she gave a speech in support of the Dreamers, the children of undocumented immigrants fighting to stay in the United States. “I’m a proud Cuban-Mexican immigrant … and all I know is, just like dreams, these kids can’t be forgotten and are worth fighting for.” She once left the stage with Fifth Harmony shouting: “Don’t vote for Trump!”

(SD-Agencies)