Shawn Mendes addresses his sexuality during concert, says he's 'figuring it out'

Shawn Mendes is, once again, tackling the ongoing, years-long rumors about his sexuality head on.

During a recent concert performance on Monday night at Colorado's Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, the 26-year-old singer-songwriter took a moment to explicitly address the pervasive speculation about his sexuality — and whether or not he is actually straight.

"I was really young when I started. I was 15 years old," Mendes told the crowd at one point during his show, according to video from the event captured and shared by TikTok user @lewisiana. "I went right into working a lot and traveling, and it was the most beautiful thing, but 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."

Mendes continued:

"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. 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."

While this is far from the first time Mendes has addressed rumors and gossip (he has talked about them in 2016, 2018, and in 2019), this time feels distinctively different in that his recent speech is probably the most intimate he's ever gone when talking about his sexuality, saying he has "yet to discover" parts about his identity he still hasn't discovered yet.

And just earlier this month, during another concert performance (this time in Woodstock, New York), Mendes sang about people questioning if he "likes girls or boys" in his new song "The Mountain," which is set to be released as part of his upcoming fifth studio album Shawn.

"Some days/I have a change of heart/You can say what you need to say/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," he croons on the track.

"I guess I'm just speaking freely now because I just want to be closer to everyone and just kind of be in my truth. The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that I'm just figuring it out like everyone," Mendes can he heard saying later on during his speech. "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, and 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."