Shawn Mendes has described the speculation about his sexuality as “hurtful.”
The 20-year-old Canadian singer told The Observer Magazine: “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.”
Last November, Mendes was quoted in a Rolling Stone profile as saying that the rumours are a “massive, massive thing” in his mind.
“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,” he said. “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.”
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Mendes told The Observer: “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.”
Mendes also expressed some frustration about his clean-cut image.
“It sounds so stupid – to be a nice person is the best thing in the world – but, yeah, I’m 20 and I just want to have fun,” he said. “What I don’t want to do is live the rest of my life thinking, ‘I wouldn’t do that because I’m known as Prince Charming.’
“The second that someone corners you into a personality, you don’t want to be that person any more.”