Shawn Mendes is spinning his heartbreak into new music. In an Instagram video posted over the weekend, the 23-year-old star opened up about his difficult split with girlfriend of two years, Camila Cabello, with whom he split in November of last year.
“A lot of the thing that also is like resonating in the lyric for me is like, ‘Oh f–k.’ You don’t realize when you’re breaking up with someone, you like, think it’s the right thing. You don’t realize all the sh-t that comes after it,” he said in the clip, during which he casually plays a melancholy riff on the piano in a space illuminated by a stained-glass window.
“Which is like, ‘Who do I call when I’m like in a panic attack? Who do I call when I’m like f—ing, on the edge?’ and I think that’s the reality that kind of hit me, ‘Oh, I’m on my own now.’ Now I feel like I’m finally like, I’m actually on my own,” he added. “And I hate that. That’s my reality, you know?”
He also provided a preview of what sounds like a heartbreak anthem, “When You’re Gone,” during which he sings: “It’s hard for me to let go of you, so I’m just trying to hold on/ I don’t want to know what it’s like when you’re gone.” Mendes previewed the song — described as a “rollicking pop-rock track primed for radio play — during his SXSW headlining performance on Saturday night at the Billboard + Samsung The Stage event in Austin at the Moody Amphitheater; Mendes revealed on Monday that “When You’re Gone” will drop on March 31.
In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to promote her new single, “Bam Bam,” Cabello said “my priorities have fluctuated and my focus has changed throughout my life… those years that we were dating, I don’t even feel like… even while I was writing this album, and even still now, I guess, my focus is really on, ‘how can I be a well-rounded person?’”
Watch Mendes discuss breaking up and preview “When You’re Gone” below.
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