Shawn Mendes Talks About the Damage ‘The Desperation for Me to Come Out as Being Gay’ Did To Him—WATCH
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Singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes got into a deep discussion about rumors that have swirled about his sexual orientation since his debut with Dax Shepard on his podcast Armchair Expert.
The conversation comes on the heels of an interview Mendes did with The Guardian where he said that in the early years of his career “there was a desperation for me to come out as being gay, which is such a ridiculous thing. I got upset because I know people who are gay who haven’t come out and I know the suffering they experience because of that,” Mendes added. “It’s just completely ignorant and insensitive of people to be on that sh*t.”
In 2019 Mendes told The Guardian, “For me [speculation about my sexual orientation is] hurtful. I get mad when people assume things about me because I imagine the people who don’t have the support system I have and how that must affect them. That was why I was so angry, and you can see I still get riled up, because I don’t think people understand that when you come at me about something that’s stupid you hurt so many other people. They might not be speaking, but they’re listening.”
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Said Shepard to Mendes: “You were in a very tough position. There were all these rumors about you being gay early on. And I remember thinking, ‘oh, you’re in this impossible situation because if you wanna come out and go ‘I’m not gay’ it has some weird veil of homophobia’ which I’m certain you’re not homophobic.”
“It was also so frustrating for me because there were some people in my life that I was very very close to, who were gay and in the closet,” replied Mendes. “And I felt like this real anger for those people. It’s such a tricky thing. You’re right. You want to say, ‘I’m not gay but it’d be fine if I was gay. But also there’s nothing wrong with being gay … but I’m not.’ You don’t really know how to respond to the situation.”
“It’s a trap,” said Shepard.
“I’ve realized that we just have to stop having to be experts and politicians about it, especially as a famous musician who’s a guy,” Mendes answered. “I need to be really f**king messy and say the wrong things and apologize and say the right thing after I apologize and be confused about how to respond when people say I’m gay. Everyone’s been calling me gay since I was 15 years old. I’m not gay and I’m like, ‘What does that mean?’ I had these problems with the way my voice sounded. 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 sh*t. It kind of ended up becoming something I wanted to just be really open about and honest about.”
“I think a lot of guys go through that and even worse than that there are just so many guys who are gay and in the closet and must be hearing sh*t like that and just being like, ‘I’m terrified to come out,’” Mendes added.
“There’s definitely two obvious reasons that gets rumored,” Shepard replied. “Generally if there’s a beautiful dude who doesn’t have a girlfriend around him at all times. That’s one reason people go ‘something doesn’t smell right here.’ Or another reason would be the one you were nervous about — you were somehow not acting manly or masculine or straight. You had to start thinking about how you moved.”
“All my cousins were girls,” explained Mendes. “I didn’t grow up wrestling. I grew up getting my hair braided on New Year’s Eve. It just completely depends on the way you grew up in your life and your surroundings. Then came a point where it got to be like ‘hell yeah, I got that divine middle ground, that Freddie Mercury’ But then I’m also not there either. I’m totally not there. I’m still a little bit more manly than that. It’s all a little confusing so I’m just gonna let it be what it is.”
Mendes told Rolling Stone in 2018 that he’s obsessive about what people are saying on social media and does things like change the way he crosses his legs based on the comments from an anonymous stranger. He added: “In the back of my heart, 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. Even though in my heart I know that it’s not a bad thing. There’s still a piece of me that thinks that. And I hate that side of me.”
Mendes also related an inner monologue he had, imagining responding to his followers: “I thought, ‘You f**king guys are so lucky I’m not actually gay and terrified of coming out.’ That’s something that kills people. That’s how sensitive it is. Do you like the songs? Do you like me? Who cares if I’m gay?”
