Mike Coppola/Getty Images for MTV
Ever since he was a teen, pop star Shawn Mendes has had to deal with fans and haters insisting he must be gay because of how he looks and acts.
This kind of pressure isn't fair for anyone, let alone a teenager thrust into fame, and Mendes has done a very valiant job of dealing with the rumors throughout his decade-long career. He's handled the rumors with grace and understanding, and never once contributed to homophobia while doing so.
Now that he's opening up a bit about his journey to figuring himself out, let's take a look back at all the times he's had to publicly address his sexuality.
Mendes first found fame in 2013 by doing covers on Vine, and by 2016, he was releasing his second studio album, which would also be his second #1 album. He was only 18 years old, but was already dealing with rumors about his sexuality.
In a video he posted on Snapchat in 2016, he addressed the rumors.
"I was on YouTube watching some of my interviews, and I was going down the comments, and I noticed a lot of people were saying that I give them a gay vibe," he said. "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 not on my sexuality."
"I'm not frustrated because people were saying I was gay at all, I have no problem with that because it wouldn't make a difference to me," he continued. "I'm frustrated because in this day and age people have the audacity to write online that I'm gay as if it's a bad thing."
In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Mendes again addressed the "massive, massive thing for the last five years about me being gay."
"In the back of my heart, I feel like I need to go be seen with someone -- like a girl -- in public to prove to people that I'm not gay," he said, adding that he knows being gay is "not a bad thing. There's still a piece of me that thinks that. And I hate that side of me."
He also added that the speculation could have real-life consequences.
"I thought, 'You fucking guys are so lucky I'm not actually gay and terrified of coming out,' that's something that kills people," he said. "That's how sensitive it is. Do you like the songs? Do you like me? Who cares if I'm gay?"
The next year, Mendes was interviewed by British newspaper The Guardian, and again talked about the rumors.
"For me, it's hurtful. I get mad when people assume things about me because I imagine the people who don't have the support system I have and how that must affect them," he said. "That was why I was so angry, and you can see I still get riled up, because I don't think people understand that when you come at me about something that's stupid, you hurt so many other people. They might not be speaking, but they're listening."
In a new unreleased song called "The Mountain" that Mendes performed during a concert in Woodstock, New York, he talked, and sang, more about the rumors.
"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 sings.
The new track is off his upcoming fourth studio album Shawn, which will be released on November 15.
Mendes most directly addressed the rumors during a October 2024 concert in Colorado.
"Since I was really young, there's been this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it for so long," he said on stage. "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."
"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 continued. "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."
