American Idol star Clay Aiken has waded into the conversation around Shawan Mendes. Aiken randomly brought up the questions around Shawn Mendes' sexuality during a recent interview. Speaking with Variety, Aiken was promoting a Christmas album. But he turned his talks to Mendes, asking if he had come out today.
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"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 said. The singer didn't understand why people were still asking these public questions about sexuality.
Aiken was put through the wringer, enduring years of public speculation before coming out as gay in 2008.
"I feel like no one has speculated about s--t since 2000 — since I went through that c**p," he said. "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."
Clay Aiken On Shawn Mendes
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell ended in 2011 so America came to terms with us gays a little better," he continued. "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."
Meanwhile, Mendes spoke out about his sexuality, saying it's something that he's figuring out.
"There's this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it so long," he said. "[It was] kind of silly, because I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it's so hard to just put into boxes."
Meanwhile, Mendes continued, "The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I'm just figuring it out like everyone. It always felt like such an intrusion on something very personal to me. Something that I was figuring out in myself, something that I had yet to discover and still have yet to discover it."
He also said, "And it feels really scary because we live in a society that has a lot to say about that. And I'm trying to be really brave and just allow myself to be a human and feel things. And that's all I really want to say about that for now."
