When Shawn Mendes suddenly rocketed to fame in the mid-2010s, landing a major label deal in his teens off the back of the loyal, early fanbase he’d cultivated on the now-defunct social media platform Vine, his story felt familiar. Like Justin Bieber , Noah Kahan, James Bay , Conan Grey, and countless others, Mendes was another aspiring young artist plucked from relatively obscurity and flung straight into the glare of the spotlight; and like many of his contemporaries who also came to fame through these new, relatively untested means, Mendes has understandably struggled to reckon with the scrutiny and mass-exposure of the internet age. Though early albums Handwritten (2015) and Illuminate (2017) only propelled him star further north, carving out a niche for acoustic pop with the polished production chops and emotional heft to pack out stadiums, Mendes was faltering by the time 2020’s Wonder came around.
After playing a handful of shows, Mendes cancelled the majority of his planned, 64-date world tour for the album, explaining to fans that he was taking some much-needed space to focus on his health and wellbeing. It hardly came as a surprise between the ferocious tabloid scrutiny surrounding his relationship with fellow pop star Camilla Cabello , and fevered gossiping about a supposed love triangle involving Sabrina Carpenter . While the highly public dissection of romantic celebrity entanglements is nothing new, Mendes was also subject to particularly cruel, continuous an.
