Some media outlets have made a big deal out of Shawn Mendes showing up at Monday's Met Gala with Hailey Baldwin – but before hitting the carpet at the star-studded event, Mendes told W Magazine there's no romance.
"We’re really good friends," said Mendes.
“It’s funny, she’s such a pro with this type of stuff. I want it to be amazing for her, so I’ve been trying for the past 24 hours to be really silly so that she stays on. I’m happy to walk with her—she’s amazing.”
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According to reports, in a since-deleted tweet on Oct. 9, 2013, Baldwin wrote: "Hey Shawn Mendes, let's date so you can sing to me all day. I'm joking but not really." Mendes, who was 15 at the time, tweeted a month later: "Just finding out now that @haileybaldwin tweeted at me!"
But, at the iHeartRadio Music Awards in March, Baldwin told Access: “He's a friend of mine and we hang out so I see why people obviously want to make assumptions. Any guy I hang out with people are like ‘she must be dating him’ or something’s going on. I don’t ever really feel like I have to explain myself.”
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Mendes said he is slowly opening up through his music.
“‘Lost in Japan’ was me being like, I can get a little bit sexy with my music. I can push it a little bit further. I can ‘get lost in your paradise’—whatever you want that to be,” he said. “That was a really exciting and cool moment in my music to be like, I have much more freedom.
“I think every year I get older, that will open up a little bit more for me.”
Mendes said there’s a song on his new album in which he is “confessing my feelings for somebody, which I’ve never truly done before.”
He explained: “Everything has been about breakup, or hurt, or whether I’ve felt it or not. But I never truly wrote a song about somebody, confessing the way I felt, which is a terrifying thing to do.”
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— Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue) May 7, 2018