Shawn Mendes Says He’s Still ‘Figuring Out’ His Sexuality: ‘Feels Really Scary’

Shawn Mendes is “speaking freely now” about his sexuality.

The singer, who touches on sexuality in his new song “The Mountain,” was performing in Colorado Monday when he opened up to the audience.

In a TikTok post shared by a fan, the 26-year-old said, “Since I was really young, there’s been this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it for so long. 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.”

Shawn continued, “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,” explaining he was “speaking freely now” so he could be “closer to everyone.”

Mendes insisted, “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. And 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 be a human and feel things. And that’s all I really want to say about that for now.”

In another video posted on TikTok , Shawn spoke about the pressures of dating.

“When you’re single, there’s this pressure of looking for ‘The One.’ Who’s the one?… Damn, that’s a lot of pressure to put on someone when you first start dating,” he said.

“For me, I’ve just been trying to take that pressure off of whoever, and just allow myself to experience the love that is happening in that moment, wherever and however that’s happening. Man, we all need a little bit of cuddling, a little bit of hugging,” he added.

Mendes and Camila Cabello have been on and off for years, and there were reports he dated Sabrina Carpenter, too. 

Back in 2016, when Shawn was just 17, he told Snapchat followers, “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.”

A few years later he told Dax Shepard on “The Armchair Expert,” “It was so, so frustrating for me because there were some people in my life that I was very, very close to,who were gay and in the closet.”

He went on, “And I felt like this real anger for those people. 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.”

Mendes has a new album called “Shawn” dropping November 15.