Shawn Mendes showed off his sculpted figure in a tight tank top as he surfaced in Los Angeles on Tuesday – after finally revealing the ‘truth’ about his love life.
The 26-year-old pop star has spent years facing rumors about his sexuality, which he addressed onstage during a Colorado concert last week.
Telling his fans he was trying to be ‘really brave’, the singer — who famously dated Camila Cabello — revealed he was still ‘figuring it out.’
That weekend, his statement was the subject of a Saturday Night Live joke in which Heidi Garner, playing Reba McEntire, responded to a question about her election endorsement by saying: ‘Call me Shawn Mendes, ’cause I’m still figuring it out!’
When he surfaced this Tuesday, Shawn appeared unaffected by the jibe, flaunting his chiseled arms and toned chest in his skintight sleeveless top.
Shawn Mendes showed off his sculpted figure in a tight tank top as he surfaced in Los Angeles on Tuesday – after finally revealing the ‘truth’ about his love life
The There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back singer pulled his dark hair away from his eyes with a headband and rounded off the look with black sneakers.
Shawn’s latest comment on his sexuality became the target of a joke on this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live.
During the Weekend Update segment, the show took aim at celebrities who have declined to publicly endorse either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris for US President.
Heidi Gardner played Reba McEntire, who deflected questions on her own vote by saying: ‘Well here’s the thing: call me Shawn Mendes, cause I’m still figuring it out.’
The episode aired five days after Shawn made the initial statement about his sexual orientation onstage at Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver, Colorado.
He said the speculation about the subject was ‘kind of silly, because I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it’s so hard to just put into boxes.’
Shawn then revealed tot he crowd: ‘The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I’m just figuring it out like everyone.’
He continued: ‘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 it.’
The There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back singer pulled his dark hair away from his eyes with a headband and rounded off the look with black sneakers
The 26-year-old has spent years facing rumors about his sexuality, which he addressed onstage during a Colorado concert last week; pictured in Rio De Janeiro in September
Shawn added: ‘And 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.’
He noted that he was ‘really young’ when his career as a public figure began. ‘I was 15 years old. 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.’
Shawn evidently responded to the gay rumors about him in a preview performance of his upcoming song The Mountain.
Although the official track has not yet been released, the Canadian crooner has been playing the number for his fans at recent concert dates.
‘Some days, I have a change of heart. You can say what you need to say,’ he sang, in video footage that a fan has posted to TikTok.
‘You can say I’m too young. You can I’m too old. You can say I like girls or boys,’ he continued to a round of applause. ‘Whatever fits your mold.’
Although he has been the object of wild speculation about his sexuality, Shawn has only ever publicly dated women, such as Camila Cabello.
Shawn previously flatly denied that he was gay in a Snapchat message to his fans in 2016, while urging them to concentrate on his work.
That weekend, his statement was the subject of a Saturday Night Live joke in which Heidi Garner, playing Reba McEntire, responded to a question about her election endorsement
During a Weekend Update segment chaired by Colin Jost, Heidi as Reba said of her vote: ‘Well here’s the thing: call me Shawn Mendes, cause I’m still figuring it out’
‘So I don’t usually do this and bring up problems, but I was on YouTube just watching some of my interviews, and I was going down the comments and noticed a lot of people were saying that I gave 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 and not my sexuality.’
Recently, Sabrina Carpenter hit the headlines for her single Taste, a acid-tongued song that is rumored to be aimed at Shawn and Camila.
Sabrina was briefly linked to Shawn in 2023, during one of the gaps in his long-running on-off relationship with Camila.
Shawn and Camila publicly got back together not long after his dating rumors with Sabrina, but have since broken up yet again.
Sabrina’s Taste lyrics are addressed to the woman his ex has reignited his old romance with, and her message to her love rival is scathing.
‘I heard you’re back together and if that’s true, you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you,’ she taunts the other woman in the chorus.
Sabrina also reveals that she raided her ex’s wardrobe before she broke up, so that half his clothes are gone and now ‘My body’s where they’re at.’
Although he has been the object of wild speculation about his sexuality, Shawn has only ever publicly dated women, such as Camila Cabello; the pair are pictured at the 2021 Met Gala
Sabrina Carpenter (pictured onstage in New York last month) was briefly linked to Shawn in 2023, during one of the gaps in his long-running on-off relationship with Camila
She witheringly sounds off the on-again girlfriend: ‘Now I’m gone, but you’re still layin’ next to me, one degree of separation.’
Sabrina even gives herself credit for her old beau’s sense of humor, noting: ‘Hе’s funny, now all his jokes hit different. Guеss who he learned that from?’
Shawn and Camila went public as a couple over the summer of 2019 and broke up in 2021, then briefly reunited last year only to break up after six weeks.
This summer Shawn released his song Why, Why, Why about a pregnancy scare that ‘shook me to my core’ – though he declined to name the woman involved.
‘I thought I was about to be a father – shook me to the core. I’m still a kid,’ he sings in the bridge. ‘Sometimes I still cry out for my mother.’
Earlier on the song, he confesses the regrets he still harbors about the end of a relationship with a woman he never identifies by name.
‘Sweatin’ through the sheets, shakin’ in bed, visions of her naked in my head, but I went off and chose myself instead. Why, why, why? Ease my mind,’ he croons.
