Shawn Mendes Discusses Personal Journey of Discovering His Sexuality

During a Monday performance in Colorado, musician Shawn Mendes addressed his sexuality, stating he is “just figuring it out like everyone.” He communicated to attendees, “I don’t really know sometimes and I know other times. It feels really scary because we live in a society that has a lot to say about that.” Fan-recorded videos of the concert shared on social media indicate that Mendes delivered these remarks prior to performing a new, unreleased track, which appears to draw inspiration from his feelings regarding public speculation about his sexuality. The Canadian artist has previously voiced criticism of such speculation, describing it as intrusive. While on stage at Morrison’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Mendes mentioned he had “thought about this for a minute today if I was gonna say something tonight.” With encouragement from the audience, he proceeded: “The truth is that I didn’t get to do a lot of 15-year-old things and discover parts of myself that you do at 15.” He further stated: “There’s this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it so long”, and commented that 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 it.” He concluded this segment by saying: “The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I’m just figuring it out like everyone.” He then discussed his unreleased track, The Mountain, which features the lyrics: “You can say I’m too young, you can say I’m too old, you can say I like girls or boys, whatever fits your mold”. Mendes informed the audience that composing this new song was significant because “it felt like a moment where I could address it in a way that felt close to my heart”. He further stated: “And I guess 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.” In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Mendes addressed “this massive, massive thing for the last five years about me being gay”. The following year, he conveyed to the Guardian that such speculation had been “hurtful… I get mad when people assume things about me because I imagine the people who don’t have the support system I have and how that must affect them”. Mendes has achieved multiple chart-topping successes in the UK, US, and Canada, including the single Señorita, a collaboration with Camilla Cabello, with whom he also had a past romantic relationship.