Shawn Mendes says he’s still ‘figuring out’ his sexuality in candid concert speech

Shawn Mendes addressed rampant speculation about his sexuality — and confessed he is still “figuring it out.”

Before performing his new song “The Mountain” at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on Monday as part of his For Friends and Family Only tour, the Grammy nominee delivered a candid speech that has since gone viral on TikTok.

“I was really young when I started. I was 15 years old,” Mendes, now 26, began. “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.”

The singer went on to say that “people have been talking about” his sexuality “for so long … since [he] was really young.”

He noted, “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,” Mendes continued. “Something that I was figuring out in myself, something that I had yet to discover and still have yet to discover it.”

The songwriter added that he was “speaking freely” in order ” to be able to be closer to everyone and just kind of be in [his] truth.”

He concluded, “The real truth about my life and 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.”

Mendes called this “really scary because we live in a society that has a lot to say about that.”

However, the performer was “trying to be really brave and just allow [him]self to be a human and feel things.”

Mendes has spoken out about his sexuality multiple times over the years while romantically linked to Camila Cabello, Sabrina Carpenter and more stars.

“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 told Rolling Stone in November 2018. “Even though in my heart I know that it’s not a bad thing.”

The following year, Mendes admitted to the Guardian that the rumors were “hurtful” and got him “riled up.”

His most recent comments on the topic took place during an “Armchair Expert” podcast interview in 2020.

“I had these problems with the way my voice sounded,” the “Treat You Better” singer said at the time. “I’m like, ‘How do I sit?’ I’m always first to cross my legs and sit with a position of this feminine style, and I really suffered with that s–t.”

Notably, Mendes sings in “The Mountain” that fans can “say [he] likes girls or boys, whatever fits your mold.”