‘Focus should be on’ music: Shawn Mendes finds speculation on his sexuality intrusive

To Shawn Mendes, all the speculation and discussion about his sexuality “felt like such an intrusion” because he is only “just figuring it out like everyone.” 

The 26-year-old singer-songwriter opened up about this before performing the unreleased track The Mountain during a concert at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Monday night.  

On exploring sexuality

According to Variety, he said, “Since I was really young, there’s been this thing about my sexuality and people have been talking about it for so long,” Mendes said in video captured by fans. “And 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.” 

He added, that 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.” 

The Mountain

Speaking about the song, Mendes expresses, “writing this song felt really important to me because it felt like a moment where I could address it in a way that felt close to my heart.”  

He adds, “The real truth about my life and about my sexuality is that, man, I’m just figuring it out like everyone and I don’t really know sometimes, and I know other times. 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.” 

Also read: Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives: Shalini Passi exits interview twice; who made her cry?

Mendes had earlier addressed this topic when he was 17 years old. In a video posted on Snapchat, he claimed, “First of all, I’m not gay. Second of all, it shouldn’t make a difference if I was or if I wasn’t. The focus should be on the music and not my sexuality.”