Shawn Mendes on Monday revealed “the actual reality” about his sexuality, telling a theater stuffed with followers that he’s actually “simply figuring it out like everybody.”

The “Deal with You Higher” and “Stitches” singer opened up simply earlier than he carried out his newest single, “The Mountain,” which seems to handle hypothesis about his sexuality in its lyrics. The musician debuted the tune final week forward of the Nov. 15 launch of his fifth studio album “Shawn” and additional mentioned its that means onstage in Colorado on the newest cease of his intimate For Associates and Household Tour.

“Since I used to be actually younger, there’s simply been this factor about my sexuality and folks have been speaking about it for thus lengthy,” the 26-year-old mentioned whereas strumming his guitar, in response to fan footage from the Pink Rocks Park and Amphitheatre posted on TikTok. “I feel it’s type of foolish, as a result of I feel sexuality is such a fantastically advanced factor, and it’s so exhausting to simply put into packing containers.

“It at all times felt like such an intrusion on one thing very private to me, one thing that I used to be determining in myself, one thing that I had but to find and nonetheless have but to find,” he continued.

Mendes mentioned that writing “The Mountain” — a tune with lyrics about having a change of coronary heart and being rumored to love “ladies or boys” — allowed him to handle the dialogue in a approach that felt near his coronary heart.

“I’m simply talking freely now as a result of I simply need to have the ability to be nearer to everybody and simply type of be in my reality,” he mentioned. “The true reality about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I’m simply figuring it out like everybody. I don’t actually know typically, and I do know different occasions.”

The group erupted in cheers because the “Mercy” crooner continued to talk.

“And it feels actually scary as a result of we stay in a society that has so much to say about that. And I’m attempting to be actually courageous and simply permit myself to be a human and really feel issues. And, yeah, that’s all I actually need to say about that for now,” he concluded.

The soulful pop-rocker has lengthy been “pissed off” by rumors about his sexuality. He instructed Rolling Stone in 2018 that he he felt stress to be seen with girls in public “to show to those that I’m not homosexual.”

“Though in my coronary heart I do know that it’s not a foul factor. There’s nonetheless a bit of me that thinks that. And I hate that facet of me,” he mentioned in an article titled “Confessions of a Neurotic Teen Idol.”

The Canadian star, who launched his music profession posting cowl songs on Vine, was beforehand linked to his “Señorita” collaborator Camila Cabello for 2 years and to Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) earlier than that. He was extra lately rumored to be courting chiropractor Jocelyn Miranda and singer Sabrina Carpenter, although by no means publicly confirmed both of these relationships.

In a 2020 look on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Professional” podcast, the singer-songwriter mentioned that “everybody” has been calling him homosexual since he was 15. He mentioned he had points with the way in which his voice sounded and the way he crossed his legs when he would sit and that he “actually suffered with that.”

“I feel numerous guys undergo that and, even worse than that, there are such a lot of guys who’re homosexual and within the closet and have to be listening to s— like that and being like, ‘I’m terrified to come back out,’” he mentioned.

He mentioned that he felt “this actual anger for these individuals” and that he was engaged on discovering a “divine center floor” along with his sexuality that artists like Queen’s Freddie Mercury had.