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Monday night, during a performance at the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado for his For Friends and Family TourShawn Mendes spoke about his sexuality, addressing his fans directly during the concert.
«I was really young when I started. I was 15 years old,” the singer-songwriter said from the stage. “The truth is that I wasn't able to do many things as a fifteen-year-old and discover the sides of myself that you discover at 15.”
“There's this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it for so long,” she added, saying it was “a little silly, because I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it's so difficult to just pigeonhole it.”
“It always felt like an intrusion into something very personal to me. Something I was understanding in myself, something I had yet to discover and have yet to discover,” he continued. “The truth about my life and my sexuality is, man, I'm just figuring it out like everyone else. And it really scares me because we live in a society that has a lot to say about it. And I'm trying to be really brave and just allow myself to be a human being and feel things. And that's all I want to say about it for now.”
Shawn Mendes opens up about his sexuality:
“The real truth about my life and sexuality is that, 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” pic.twitter.com/5AvgPePXzp
— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 29, 2024
Mendes then started playing his unreleased song, TheMountain. The lyrics see the musician singing: “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.”
Speaking to the crowd on Monday, Mendes talked about his journey while writing the new song. “Writing the song felt really important because it felt like a moment where I could talk about it in a way that I cared about,” she said. “And I think I speak freely now, because I just want to be able to be closer to everyone and be in my truth.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2018, the year he released his third studio album, the singer spoke openly about the intrusive comments and speculation about his sexuality that had circulated online. “I thought, 'You fucking kids are so lucky that I'm not actually gay and terrified of coming out,'” he told Rolling Stone at the time. «It's something that kills people. Do you like songs? Do you like me? Who cares if I'm gay?”
