Singing is in his blood! Shawn Mendes blew up thanks to the now-defunct social media app, Vine, and his career has continued to blossom ever since.
“When I was 15, I started touring, and all of a sudden, seven years have gone by,” the Canadian crooner recalls during a November 2020 interview with VMan magazine. “An amazing seven years, going at the speed of light, and then a pandemic hits, and I have my first real girlfriend — my first time ever truly being in love — and I moved in with her parents in Miami, for the first time learning how to cook and do laundry.”
After releasing his debut single, “Life of the Party,” in 2014, Shawn found himself taking the stage every night with none other than Taylor Swift. He opened for the songstress throughout her 1989 World Tour in 2015.
“I’ve felt like I’ve been in a bubble for quite a long time, where I’ve been very afraid to speak about things that I feel really passionate about,” Shawn continued during his VMan interview. “When I was able to sit and let my world stop spinning and come still, this stillness came over me and I realized, you know, when it comes to matters of the heart, we don’t need to be experts.”
After his gig opening for one of the biggest musicians in the world, the former internet personality continued growing his career and fanbase. He dropped his first full-length album, Handwritten in 2015 and has released three more since then — Illuminate, Shawn Mendes and Wonder.
“I think I’ve mainly evolved as a person and that’s kind of reflecting in the music.” Shawn told Radio.com after kicking off his Wonder era in 2020. “I think one thing that really kind of happen to me over the last six months is this real moment of reflecting and kind of looking at my own life, but also like being able to look at the world and not be so caught up in my career, my job and my life, but I’m able to kind of look around see things a lot clearer for the first time.”
While he’s not only evolved professionally, the singer has given fans more access to his personal life as well. Shawn was in a public relationship with ex-girlfriend Camila Cabello from July 2019 to November 2021, and nothing was off-limits.
“I don’t think that I’m going to be able to write songs that really do it justice, that can really capture the things and the feelings with her,” Shawn said of their relationship during his November 2020 Netflix documentary In Wonder. “I think it’s like when you see a moon or stars and you try and take a photo of it with your iPhone and then you just can’t. It just doesn’t look good. And you’re like, ‘It’s not supposed to be captured,’ you know? It’s just supposed to be for us.”
Click through our gallery for a look at Shawn’s transformation from Vine star to now!
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