Shawn Mendes told fans during a concert on Monday that he is “still figuring out” his sexuality.
The There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back singer addressed the ongoing rumours about his sexual orientation before he sang his new track The Mountain at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on Monday night.
He said that he felt the long-running speculation was “kind of silly” because “sexuality is 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 I was figuring out in myself. Something I had yet to discover and still have yet to discover,” Shawn continued, according to footage posted on TikTok.
“The real truth about my life and my sexuality is, man, I’m just figuring it out like everyone. 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. I’m trying to be really brave and just allow myself to just be human and feel things. That’s all I really wanna say about that for now.”
Shawn, who previously dated singers Camila Cabello and Sabrina Carpenter, explained that he wrote The Mountain to confront the rumours in a way that “felt close to (his) heart”.
In the track, the 26-year-old sings, “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 mould.”
Shawn previously spoke about the speculation on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast in 2020.
“It’s such a tricky thing. You want to say, ‘I’m not gay but it’d be fine if I was gay – but also there’s nothing wrong with being gay but I’m not.’ You don’t really know how to respond to the situation,” he said at the time.
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: Josiah VanDien