NEWSFriends Or Foes? Here’s What Shawn Mendes Said About His ‘Feud’ With Justin Bieber
The release of Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes’ hit single "Monster" last month had certainly taken their fans by surprise since it was once claimed that the pair didn’t get along with one another.
But in a recent interview with GQ magazine, the 22-year-old Canadian superstar dispelled any claims of ever having shared a rivalry with the Biebs, insisting that though they weren’t always friends, the two never deemed each other as enemies.
Mendes candidly admitted that he was never “texting Justin and being like, 'Yo, how you doing today?,' but we were never enemies, absolutely, and that's kind of something that people maybe might've turned it into at some point.”
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Rumors of a supposed feud between the two first emerged back in 2015, when a reporter had asked the “Yummy” hitmaker to share his thoughts on Mendes’ music, to which Bieber responded: “Who is Shawn Mendes?”
During his chat with GQ, Mendes said that he never took the remark as an insult because Bieber clearly had never heard of the singer at the time, and while others were making it out to be a big deal on social media, the Ontario native refused to cause a scene over it.
The two appeared to have spoken about the comment Bieber made to the reporter when they finally met. Mendes recalled: “He said he really genuinely didn’t know who I was, and I believed him. So whatever, maybe he did and he was trying to bug me either way.”
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Interestingly enough, Mendes did admit that his friendship with Bieber is still fairly new, sharing that their bond came in the midst of working on their surprise collaboration earlier this year.
Mended added that his closeness with Bieber developed thanks to the COVID pandemic, which not only allowed the two to get to know each other better but also work on the possibility of potentially collaborating on a song together.
“Both of us were famous at a young age and I think it’s interesting when people put you up on a pedestal because it messes with your head a bit,” he explained.
“We’ve known each other for a few years but for some reason during the pandemic we ended up becoming kind of closer than ever before.”
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"Monster" performed exceptionally well following its release on November 20, peaking at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and entering the Top 10 in several countries including the U.K., Norway, Germany, and Switzerland, just to name a few.
Meanwhile, the release of Mendes’ fourth studio album, Wonder, on December 4 accomplished similar success with first-week sales amassing to 89,000 units in the U.S., earning the “Senorita” singer-songwriter his fourth consecutive No.1 album on the Billboard Hot 200.
