Shawn Mendes is getting candid about his sexuality.
The singer opened up to his fans during a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado on Monday, where he also performed his upcoming song “The Mountain” which features lyrics about having conversations about his sexuality.
“Some days, I change my mind / You can say what you need to say,” Mendes sings during the show, in footage shared on TikTok. “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.”
The “Stitches” artist then chimed in on the conversation during the For Friends and Family Tour show.
“Ever since I was really young, there's been this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it for so long,” Mendes said in a video posted to TikTok. “I think it's a little silly, because I think sexuality is a wonderfully complex thing, and it's so hard to put it in a box. It always felt like such an intrusion into something very personal to me, something I was discovering within myself, something I had yet to discover, and have yet to discover.
The “Treat You Better” singer added that he's “speaking freely now” so he can be “closer to everyone.”
“The real truth about my life and my sexuality is, man, I'm just figuring it out like everyone else. Sometimes I really don't know, and I know other times. And it's really scary because we live in a society that has a lot to say about it,” Mendes continued to tell his fans. “I'm trying to be really brave and allow myself to be human and try things. And that's all I want to say about it for now.
Mendes, who will release his self-titled LP on November 15, has dated Camila Cabello over the years.
The “If I Can't Have You” artist had previously commented on the discussion about his sexuality on Dax Shepard's site Armchair expert podcasts in 2020.
“It was so, so frustrating for me because there were some people in my life that I was very, very close to, who were gay and they weren't hiding,” Mendes said at the time. “And I felt this real anger for those people. It's a really complicated thing. You want to say, “I'm not gay, but it would be fine if I were, but there's nothing wrong with being gay, but I'm not.” You don't really know how to respond to the situation.