Songfacts®:

• "Señorita" is a smooth Latin love song in which Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello croon about their fictitious romance.
  
  I love it when you call me señorita
  I wish I could pretend I didn't need ya
  
  "Señorita" is the Spanish equivalent of "Miss" in English, and is a way of addressing an unmarried woman. The Cuba-born Cabello loves it when Canadian-Portuguese Mendes calls her that name.
• Mendes and Cabello previously collaborated on the 2015 hit "I Know What You Did Last Summer." The pair formed a close friendship when recording that song and knew they wanted to work together again. "Señorita" had been in the works for about nine months before its release on June 21, 2019.
  
  Mandes and Cabello began dating for real the following month. Their romance continued until November 2021, when they announced their breakup via Instagram.
• The sensual Dave Myers-directed video finds the motorbike-riding Mendes hooking up with diner waitress Cabello. They dance the night away before things get really physical in a hotel room. Cabello admitted in a live chat she needed some Dutch courage to calm her nerves before shooting the steamy scenes with Mendes.
  
  "The whole music video was funny because we were both really nervous. I had to drink a lot of wine!" she laughed.
• The song earned both artists a second UK chart-topper. Mendes scored his first UK #1 in 2016 with "Stitches," while Cabello reached the summit with "Havana" the following year.
• "Señorita" was written by Charli XCX, Ali Tamposi, Clean Bandit's Jack Patterson, plus the producers Andrew Watt, Benny Blanco, and Cashmere Cat. The writers then bought in Mendes and Cabello to record the vocals and tweak the lyrics.
• Mendes was set to record his vocals on a day off during his UK tour; however, Watt blew the microphone, which delayed things. Much to Mendes' annoyance, this meant he had to lay them down just before a run of four nights at London's O2 Arena, just when he had been planning to rest his voice. Watt told Billboard he thinks Mendes' "amazing raspy tone" was because he was so cross.
  
  Having recorded his vocals, Mendes then FaceTimed Cabello and started tweaking the lyrics with her. The first time they were actually in the studio together was a fortnight before the song came out. "Señorita" was already being mixed when Cabello came up with, "You say we're just friends but friends don't know the way they taste." She insisted on the lyric being there, so Mendes had to come in and re-sing his harmonies just for that line.
• The song climbed to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated August 31, 2019. It was Mendes' first chart-topper and Cabello's second following "Havana."
• This won for Best Collaboration at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards. Mendes and Cabello steamed up the windows when they performed it at the ceremony.
• Cabello was on tour with Taylor Swift when Mendes first texted her about hooking up for this song. The Cuban-American wasn't interested at first, but found she couldn't get the chorus of Mendes' track out of her head. She eventually relented and reached out to him, but by this time, Mendes wasn't sure he wanted to record the track anymore.
  
  "It went back and forth for, like, eight months," Cabello told Elle. Then we finally went into the studio and reworked it, so we both felt good about it, without any pressure. I love working with him so much."
• Co-writer Charli XCX is a pop star in her own right, but she turned "Senorita" over to Camila Cabello after realizing the tune was a better fit for the former Fifth Harmony star. Speaking with 103.3 AMP Radio in Boston, Charli said she knew straight away the song was good but it wasn't going to be one she would release herself.
  
  "This Latin pop flair just wasn't right for who I am because I am not a part of that culture. I'm not from there," she explained. "Whereas Camila has that in her blood, so when we wrote the song we thought about her and sent it to her."
• The song was included on both the deluxe edition of Shawn Mendes' self-titled album and Camila Cabello's Romance longplayer.
• "Senorita" won Best Single of the Year at the 2020 Juno awards. Mendes also took home Best Artist of the Year, the second time in a row he received the honor.
• Speaking in a June 2024 interview with Complex, Cabello opened up about the pressure of a song's success. "I think there's always a worry when a song becomes so massive that it's going to be bigger than you," she told the publication.
  
  While she's happy about the massive success of "Señorita" with Shawn Mendes, she admits it can be limiting. "People attached to you in a certain light," she added. "I was in a really public relationship and as a woman, you're like, 'I don't want this couple thing to be my new identity.'"