Clay Aiken is becoming a member of the dialog about Shawn Mendes’ sexuality.
In an interview with Selection printed Wednesday, the “American Idol” alum, 45, paused speaking about his Christmas album to randomly deliver up the discourse round Mendes, 26.
“By the way, did Shawn Mendes come out today?” Aiken requested. “Have you seen this video on his Instagram? I didn’t finish watching it because I looked at the time and I was like, ‘Oh God, I gotta get on the computer.’”
“So I don’t know if he really did,” Aiken added. “I shouldn’t out him if he didn’t.”
Aiken’s interview seemingly came about on the finish of October when Mendes made headlines for saying he was nonetheless “figuring out” his sexuality at his live performance in Colorado. Clips of the second had been shared on TikTok by followers.
“The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I’m just figuring it out like everyone,” Mendes stated on the Pink Rocks Amphitheatre on Oct. 28. “I don’t really know sometimes, and I know other times.”
After mentioning Mendes, Aiken — who got here out as homosexual in 2008 — was requested by the Selection reporter how he feels in regards to the hypothesis in regards to the fellow singer’s sexuality.
“I feel like no one has speculated about s – – t since 2000 — since I went through that crap,” he stated. “I joke that after I came out publicly, it stopped being a story. I don’t know that anybody has had press in that way, like tabloid stories or questions by Diane Sawyer.”
Aiken went on, “Maybe people got bored after going through six years of it with me. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ended in 2011 so America came to terms with us gays a little better. We have insisted our media become more empathetic. Press can’t invade in the way they used to be able to invade. And that’s great.”
“But I didn’t mean to derail this,” he advised the interviewer. “It just came up on my screen right before I turned on the computer.”
The Publish has reached out to Mendes’ rep for remark
The dialog then shifted again to Aiken’s Christmas album.
When Aiken got here out to “Good Morning America’s” Diane Sawyer in 2008, he admitted that the hypothesis about his sexuality was hurtful.
“I’ve gotten to a point now where I, A., am tired of trying, and B., I feel it’s kind of invasive, you know?” he stated on the time. “What I do in my private life is nobody’s business anymore.”
“It’s one thing to try to be open and talk to people and try to share as much as I can and, and of course I want to,” Aiken continued. “But at some point it becomes just really rude, you know?”
Mendes, in the meantime, bought candid about his sexuality at his Colorado live performance final month.
“Since I was really young, there’s been this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it for so long,” he advised the group, noting that the rumors are “kind of silly, because I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it’s so hard to just put into boxes.”
Mendes has dated Camila Cabello on and off since 2019. He was additionally beforehand linked to Hailey Bieber and Sabrina Carpenter.
In 2020, the musician spoke on the rumors about his sexuality throughout an look on the “Armchair Expert” podcast.
“It was so, 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,” Mendes stated.
“And I felt like this real anger for those people. It’s such a tricky thing. 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,” he added.
