Fifth Harmony's Lauren Jauregui defends controversial Donald Trump letter

Fifth Harmony star Lauren Jauregui has defended her powerful open letter criticizing Donald Trump, insisting she felt "compelled" to stand up against the President.

The 20-year-old singer, a quarter of the hit pop group, shared an informed and well-written letter with People magazine in January (17), with the piece detailing her thoughts on the controversial executive order Trump signed that month which closed borders to travelers and refugees from seven Middle Eastern countries for 90 days.

Lauren's letter hit headlines upon being published, but the star told radio station HOT 97 that she still stands by everything she said in the piece.

"I kind of saw a lot more support than I saw backlash," she explained. "For me, the whole message was really important and at the time I felt in my heart compelled to say something about it because I so strongly believe in what I believe in and I myself I love who I am and I love who these women are."

The letter wasn't solely indicative of Lauren's feelings, but also represented Fifth Harmony's outlook as a band. And Lauren believes it was important for the band to reassure their fans that they are behind them 100 per cent, regardless of their race, gender or birthplace.

"We represent that. We stand for women of color and women going through things and this administration just jeopardized that in a very grand scheme and in a way that made it seem validated and that to me wasn't acceptable," she continued. "I needed our fans to know they're loved and accepted and fear isn't the way to go."

One of the reasons Lauren's outspoken views in the letter caused such a stir is because speaking out isn't very common in the pop music industry. However, the Cuban-American star admitted she's never been one to toe the line.

"Something that's so important, is just like empowering these kids and letting them know what their voice means and showing them that they shouldn't be afraid. Because there's nothing to fear," she said.

"This world is our reality, we create the reality that we exist in so if everyone can just think about what they're doing and think about what's going on and really care about it for just a second of their time... Empathy is so important and making empathy cool and make empathy (is) a really amazing thing that everyone should want to practice. We should care about each other."