Shawn Mendes on Monday revealed “the real truth” about his sexuality, telling a theater full of fans that he’s really “just figuring it out like everyone.”
The “Treat You Better” and “Stitches” singer opened up just before he performed his latest single, “The Mountain,” which appears to address speculation about his sexuality in its lyrics. The musician debuted the song last week ahead of the Nov. 15 release of his fifth studio album “Shawn” and further discussed its meaning onstage in Colorado on the latest stop of his intimate For Friends and Family Tour.
“Since I was really young, there’s just been this thing about my sexuality and people have been talking about it for so long,” the 26-year-old said while strumming his guitar, according to fan footage from the Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre posted on TikTok. “I think it’s kind of silly, because I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it’s so hard to just put into boxes.
“It always felt like such an intrusion on something very personal to me, something that I was figuring out in myself, something that I had yet to discover and still have yet to discover,” he continued.
Mendes said that writing “The Mountain” — a song with lyrics about having a change of heart and being rumored to like “girls or boys” — allowed him to address the discussion in a way that felt close to his heart.
“I’m just speaking freely now because I just want to be able to be closer to everyone and just kind of be in my truth,” he said. “The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I’m just figuring it out like everyone. I don’t really know sometimes, and I know other times.”
The crowd erupted in cheers as the “Mercy” crooner continued to speak.
“And it feels really scary because we live in a society that has a lot to say about that. And I’m trying to be really brave and just allow myself to be a human and feel things. And, yeah, that’s all I really want to say about that for now,” he concluded.
The soulful pop-rocker has long been “frustrated” by rumors about his sexuality. He told Rolling Stone in 2018 that he he felt pressure to be seen with women in public “to prove to people that I’m not gay.”
“Even though in my heart I know that it’s not a bad thing. There’s still a piece of me that thinks that. And I hate that side of me,” he said in an article titled “Confessions of a Neurotic Teen Idol.”
The Canadian star, who launched his music career posting cover songs on Vine, was previously linked to his “Señorita” collaborator Camila Cabello for two years and to Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) before that. He was more recently rumored to be dating chiropractor Jocelyn Miranda and singer Sabrina Carpenter, though never publicly confirmed either of those relationships.
In a 2020 appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, the singer-songwriter said that “everyone” has been calling him gay since he was 15. He said he had issues with the way his voice sounded and how he crossed his legs when he would sit and that he “really suffered with that.”
“I think a lot of guys go through that and, even worse than that, there are so many guys who are gay and in the closet and must be hearing s— like that and being like, ‘I’m terrified to come out,’” he said.
He said that he felt “this real anger for those people” and that he was working on finding a “divine middle ground” with his sexuality that artists like Queen’s Freddie Mercury had.
