Dove Cameron is opening up about her life in a candid and revealing interview. The 28-year-old actress and singer got real in a Cosmopolitan digital cover story, where she delved into her relationship with Måneskin’s lead singer Damiano David, her journey of honoring her queerness, and much more.
On Meeting Damiano David
Dove first crossed paths with Damiano at the 2022 VMAs, a meeting that seemed fleeting at the time. “The first time was at the 2022 VMAs and his band and I were both up for the same award,” she recalled. “And then a couple of months later, their team had reached out to me about coming to their album release and I couldn’t make it work with the dates, but I was like, ‘Oh, that’s so sweet that they thought about me. We only met once.’”
Their connection grew stronger over time, especially when they met again at the 2023 VMAs. “We had a reason to talk to each other,” Dove explained. “When he came up to me, it felt like… I don’t know, a year can do a lot. It felt like it had been 10 years or something. When we had met before, he was in a very different space and I was too, so we didn’t register each other at all in that way.”
Their relationship quickly deepened. “He was like, ‘We’re starting our world tour at Madison Square Garden. If you’re still in town in a few days, we’d love it if you came.’ It was super innocent. And then they invited me back to their greenroom and then we started talking and then he asked me to the after-party. And then very quickly it became ‘Let’s have dinner at 8:00 at this spot.’”
On How Quickly Their Romance Progressed
From an outsider’s perspective, it might have looked like things moved fast between Dove and Damiano, but Dove explained that their bond was built slowly and cautiously. “From the outside, it looks like it was very hot and heavy, and it looks like it was overnight,” she admitted. “But we had both been in situations where we were very harmed in the past and we are very sensitive people. And I think when we met, we were not looking, and it was just sort of investigating… it was very, very slow, cautious, feeling-out.”
On Lessons from Past Relationships
Dove has learned a lot from her previous relationships, especially about recognizing red flags early on. “Red flags in the beginning are red flags forever. They don’t go away,” she emphasized. “I’ve been in so many relationships where my actual standing in the relationship or even my physical safety was threatened because I acted in a way that was not in their expectations of me, and the expectations would be so fcking thin. I wish I had spoken about what was going on in those relationships to my community, who would’ve pulled me out. If a boyfriend’s ever telling you, ‘Don’t tell anyone what goes on between us,’ call your mom right now. Call your fcking mom.”
On Still Honoring Her Queerness in This Romance
Dove’s relationship with Damiano has been a supportive space for her queerness. “When we met, my coming out was happening. So how he knew me was through the lens of my queer identity,” she shared. “And as my partner, he is very, very supportive. I’ve never felt invalidated by dating him as a straight man. I’ve always felt like he saw me as my full self and for my identity, while also not feeling threatened or diminished by that.”
On Public Perception and Expectations
Handling public expectations and misconceptions about her relationship hasn’t been easy, but Dove has learned to approach it with empathy. “A year and a half ago, it would’ve completely made me spiral to have people question my identity,” she revealed. “But I try to allow for as much empathy and understanding for people who do not know what they don’t know, which is not to say there isn’t room to grow. That’s why I have empathy because I believe that we can get there. I believe that the conversation is only going to be furthered by humanizing everyone. The conversation about not understanding how I can be bisexual and have a straight boyfriend, I have more patience for it. People are scared of what they don’t understand, and so they try to put a label on something and they make it smaller so that they feel like they can hold it and see it and touch it and smell it.”
On Going Public with Her Relationship
Dove and Damiano’s relationship went public somewhat unintentionally. “At one point, some paparazzi photos got leaked. We went back to the hotel room and we were like, ‘Well. F*ck, I guess.’ I think in the pap photos we were kissing, and both of us had never been in that situation. There’s no handbook for how to handle this,” she said. “We were pretty casual at that point. So it was, do we trust that this is going to go right? We didn’t know. So we went about it in the most sane way we could think of, which is just leave it. Live our lives, but live them mostly quietly.”
On Writing About Her Exes in Her Songs
Dove has a clear philosophy when it comes to writing about her exes. “This is my approach: If it is in service to the story, no detail should be left out. If it is about spite or revenge, then that’s ugly, and I wouldn’t go there,” she explained. “That being said, you get into a sticky zone where if it’s vague enough, they might blame the person that you’re dating now. So it’s interesting to try to navigate, because now people are like, timeline, DNA testing, fingerprints…. Some artists write so much that they can have an album come out every six months, and so it’s easier to keep up with. Obviously, we have our icon, queen of the world Taylor Swift, who is writing in real time all the time. And so it’s very easy for us to sort of be like, ‘Oh, this was so and so, this was so and so.’ As songwriters, you have to use your own judgment.”
