Shawn Mendes appeared to respond to gay rumors about him in a preview of his upcoming song The Mountain.
Although the official song has yet to be released, the 26-year-old performed the track for his fans at a recent concert.
‘Some days I change my mind. You can say what you have to say,” he sang, in video sequences that a fan has posted on TikTok.
‘You can say I’m too young. Can. I’m too old. “You can say that I like boys or girls,” he continued to applause. “Whatever fits your mold.”
Although he has been the subject of widespread speculation about his sexuality, Shawn has only publicly dated women, such as Camila Cabello.
Shawn Mendes appeared to respond to gay rumors about him in a preview of his upcoming song The Mountain; photographed in Rio de Janeiro last month
Shawn previously outright denied he was gay in a Snapchat message to his fans in 2016, while urging them to focus on their work.
“I don’t usually do this and bring up issues, but I was on YouTube watching some of my interviews, going through the comments, and I noticed a lot of people were saying it gave them a ‘gay vibe.'”‘ he said.
‘First of all, I’m not gay. Secondly, it shouldn’t make any difference whether it was or not. The focus should be on the music and not my sexuality.’
Recently, Sabrina Carpenter made headlines for her single Taste, a tart song rumored to be aimed at Shawn and Camila.
Sabrina was briefly linked to Shawn in 2023, during one of the gaps in his long on-off relationship with Camila.
Shawn and Camila got back together publicly shortly after his dating rumors with Sabrina, but have since broken up once again.
The lyrics of Sabrina’s Taste are addressed to the woman with whom her ex has rekindled his old romance, and her message to her love rival is scathing.
“I heard they’re back together and if that’s true, you’re going to have to taste me when he kisses you,” she teases the other woman in the chorus.
Although the official song has not yet been released, the 26-year-old played the track for his fans at a recent concert; in the photo from his music video Why, Why, Why.
Although he has been the subject of great speculation about his sexuality, Shawn has only publicly dated women, such as Camila Cabello; the couple is pictured at the 2021 Met Gala
Sabrina Carpenter (pictured on stage in New York last month) was briefly linked to Shawn in 2023, during one of the gaps in his long on-off relationship with Camila.
Sabrina also reveals that she raided her ex’s closet before they broke up, so half of his clothes are gone and now “my body is where it is.”
She sounds witheringly like the on-again, off-again girlfriend: “Now I’m gone, but you’re still lying next to me, one degree of separation.”
Sabrina even takes credit for her old boyfriend’s sense of humor, noting, “It’s funny, all his jokes are different now.” Guess who he learned that from?
Shawn and Camila went public as a couple during the summer of 2019 and split in 2021, then briefly reunited last year only to split after six weeks.
This summer, Shawn released his song Why, Why, Why about a pregnancy scare that “shook me to my core,” although he declined to name the woman involved.
‘I thought I was about to be a father – it shook me to the core. I’m still a child,’ he sings in the bridge. “Sometimes I still cry for my mother.”
At the beginning of the song, he confesses the regrets he still harbors over the end of a relationship with a woman he never identifies by name.
‘Sweating between the sheets, shaking in bed, visions of her naked in my head, but I went and chose myself. Why, why, why? Calm me down,’ he sings.