Watch: Shawn Mendes Opens Up about the Double Bind Around Discussing His Sexuality

Pop star Shawn Mendes has come to a place where he's no longer eager to please everyone else – and that includes whether and how to talk publicly about his sexuality.

Mendes pushed back in a recent interview with podcaster Zane Lowe, BuzzFeed reported, doing a deep dive into the meaning of his song "The Mountain" and speaking out against being cornered in a way that reduces a desire for personal space and privacy to "hiding something" while, by the same token, a celebrity risks being attacked as "promoting" him- or herself if they do choose to talk about intimate personal matters.

As previously reported, Mendes leaned into the subject of the public's fascination with his personal life in "The Mountain," in which he declared his lack of interest in whether people want to think of him as gay or straight.

"You can say what you need to say," Mendes croons in the song. "You can say I'm too young/You can say I'm too old/You can say I like girls or boys/Whatever fits your mold."

In comments about the song during a recent live set, Mendes explained that he's "still figuring it out" – and in his interview with Lowe he addressed the song's meaning more deeply, saying that he was "writing about, you know, people's, and the media's, desire to exploit relationships."

BuzzFeed related that that the 26-year-old star, who has been in the public eye since he was 15, "reacted to the response to his comments" at the live set, "with some accusing him of only mentioning his sexuality as a publicity stunt for his new album, 'Shawn,'" which dropped last Friday.

"If you're not saying anything, you're hiding," BuzzFeed quoted Mendes telling Lowe of the impossible bind that celebrities can be put into when fans obsess over their sexuality. "And if you're saying something, you're promoting it."

"It's crazy, isn't it?" Mendes added.

In comments to the audience of the live set last month, Mendes noted the public's fascination with his personal life, saying, "There's this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it for so long." He added that such prurient interest is "kind of silly," and mused, "I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it's so hard to just put into boxes."

Calling public speculation "an intrusion on something very personal to me," Mendes summarized: "The real truth about my life and my sexuality is that, man, I'm just figuring it out like everyone."

Mendes echoed that in his conversation with Lowe, noting, "no matter what you call it, no matter what you say, there's all these ways of defining it and putting it in a box and calling it bad and calling it good and right and wrong. It really doesn't matter, because I feel this. The phrase 'So call it what you want' was an extremely empowering thing for me... because I've spent a lot of years being hurt by what people call it."

Mendes' arrival at where he is now only came about after he stepped back from the spotlight, putting his career on hold for an extended period.

"Humans, we're pretty fragile," Mendes told Lowe, after noting the detrimental effects of having "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people projecting their opinion of who they think you are and why they think you're that onto you..."

Lowe offered Mendes his own response to some fans accusing Mendes of "promoting" his new album by delving into the subject of his sexuality, BuzzFeed detailed.

"I said: 'The guy hasn't promoted anything for four-and-a-half fucking years,'" BuzzFeed quoted the podcast host telling Mendes. "The guy literally played the 'No Attention' game for four-and-a-half fucking years, and now you're accusing him of trying to sell records. Are you kidding?!"

Talking about how he sees his role as an artist, Mendes said, "I have one job, and it's to express my truth. It's my responsibility, 'cause if people are connecting with the songs and it's coming from a place that isn't true, they're getting a distorted image and I don't want that."

Watch the conversation between Mendes and Lowe below.