Shawn Peter Raul Mendes ( MEN-dez, European Portuguese: [ˈmẽdɨʃ]; born August 8, 1998) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and musician. Mendes gained early recognition for posting popular song covers on the social media platforms YouTube and Vine. He later signed to Island Records and released his self-titled debut EP in 2014.
Mendes's debut studio album, Handwritten (2015), debuted atop the US Billboard 200 and featured his breakout single "Stitches", which reached number one in the UK and the top 10 in the US and Canada. His second studio album, Illuminate (2016), produced a string of successful singles, including "Treat You Better", "Mercy", and "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back". His self-titled third studio album featured the lead single "In My Blood", while its deluxe edition included the hit singles "If I Can't Have You" and "Señorita"; the latter became his first US Billboard Hot 100 number-one single. His fourth studio album, Wonder (2020), made him the youngest male artist ever to top the Billboard 200 with four studio albums. After a brief hiatus, Mendes released his folk-driven fifth studio album, Shawn (2024).
Mendes's accolades include thirteen SOCAN awards, ten MTV Europe Music Awards, eight Juno Awards, eight iHeartRadio MMVAs, two American Music Awards, in addition to nominations for three Grammy Awards and a Brit Award. In 2018, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world on their annual list.
Shawn Peter Raul Mendes was born on August 8, 1998, in Toronto, to English mother Karen (née Rayment) and Portuguese father Manuel Mendes, and was raised in Pickering, Ontario. His mother is a real estate agent, while his father is a businessman from the Algarve who sells bar and restaurant supplies in Toronto. He has a younger sister named Aaliyah. He was raised in a religious family, and played youth soccer with Pickering FC. Mendes graduated from Pine Ridge Secondary School in June 2016, where he played ice hockey and soccer, joined his high school glee club, and crafted his stage presence in acting lessons (leading as Prince Charming at one point). He also auditioned for the Disney Channel in Toronto.
Mendes learned to play guitar by watching YouTube tutorial videos at the age of 13 in 2012. Less than a year later he started posting cover videos on YouTube. Mendes started attracting viewers after he posted a cover from Justin Bieber's "As Long as You Love Me" on the social video app Vine in 2013 and got 10,000 likes and as many followers the next day. After that he gained millions of views and followers in a few months, becoming well known for his six-second snippets of renditions of many popular songs. Mendes saw Bieber as a career model at the time. By August 2014, he was the third most-followed musician on Vine. Artist manager Andrew Gertler discovered Mendes online in November 2013, bringing him to Island Records in January 2014. In April, he won Ryan Seacrest's "Best Cover Song" contest with "Say Something" by A Great Big World. He officially signed to Island in May 2014.
He released his first single "Life of the Party" on June 26, 2014. He became the youngest to debut in the top 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it to number 24 for the week ending July 12, 2014. Prior to his signing, Mendes toured as a member of the Magcon Tour alongside other young Viners with a large following on social media. Mendes was also on a nationwide tour with Austin Mahone as an opening act. He released his debut major label EP in July. The EP debuted and peaked at number five on the Billboard 200, selling 48,000 copies in its first week. He won a Teen Choice award in 2014 for Webstar in Music. On September 5, 2014, "Oh Cecilia (Breaking My Heart)" featuring Mendes was released as the fifth single from the Vamps' debut album, Meet the Vamps. On November 6, 2014, "Something Big" was released as the second single.
On April 14, 2015, Mendes released his full-length album Handwritten, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with 119,000 equivalent album units, selling 106,000 copies in its first week and was certified platinum. Mendes then became the youngest artist to debut at number one since the release of Justin Bieber's My World 2.0. The third single from the album, "Stitches", peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming his first top 10 single in the US, and became his first number one on the Adult Pop Songs and Adult Contemporary charts. The song later reached number one in the UK. Also in 2015, Mendes opened for Taylor Swift during 1989 World Tour dates for North America and recorded "Believe" for the soundtrack of Disney Channel Original Movie Descendants. In late 2015, Mendes and Camila Cabello, who was at the time a member of the group Fifth Harmony, released their collaborative single "I Know What You Did Last Summer". The song was included on Mendes's Handwritten Revisited reissue.
Mendes was listed among Time's "25 Most Influential Teens of 2014", debuting in the list after being the youngest-ever artist to debut in the top 25 of Billboard Hot 100. He was listed in Time's "The 30 Most Influential Teens of 2015", making the list after his debut album topped the Billboard 200 and his single "Stitches" made the top 10 in the US and other countries.
On January 21, 2016, Mendes made his acting debut on The CW's The 100 third-season premiere. He later announced his second world tour as a headliner, the Shawn Mendes World Tour, which started in March 2016 and sold out 38 shows in North America and Europe within minutes.
Mendes released "Treat You Better", the lead single from his second studio album, in June 2016. In the US, the single reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, became his second single to peak atop both the Adult Contemporary and Adult Pop Songs chart, and was certified triple platinum. It also went top 10 in the UK. The album, Illuminate, was released on September 23, 2016, and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 145,000 equivalent album units, including 121,000 in pure album sales and was certified platinum. It debuted atop the charts in Canada, becoming his second number one album in his home country. "Mercy" was released as the second single on August 18, 2016, which entered the top 20 in the US and the UK and was certified double platinum. Mendes released the live album Live at Madison Square Garden in December 2016. He appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, December 3, 2016.
In April 2017, Mendes embarked on his Illuminate World Tour, which sold-out arenas around the world such as Los Angeles' Staples Center and London's The O2 Arena. He released the single "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back" on April 20, 2017, included on his Illuminate deluxe edition. The song was Mendes's third single to reach the top 10 in the US and third single to reach number one on both the Adult Contemporary and Adult Pop Songs chart. In August 2017, he became the first artist under 20 years old to have three number-one songs on the Billboard Adult Pop Songs chart. In November 2017, Mendes became the first artist to have three number-one songs on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart before turning 20 years old, an unprecedented feat since the founding of the chart more than 50 years ago.
Mendes was listed among Time's The 30 Most Influential Teens of 2016 and made his first appearance on Forbes's 30 Under 30 2016: Music. He topped Billboard's 21 Under 21 list in 2017, after his two albums topped the Billboard 200 and his single "There's Nothing Holding Me Back" became his fifth top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.
On March 22, 2018, Mendes released the lead single "In My Blood" from his upcoming third studio album, followed up by the second single "Lost in Japan" on March 23. "In My Blood" topped the Billboard Adult Pop Songs chart, making Mendes the first and only artist to have four number one singles in the chart before turning 20 years old. "Youth" was released on May 3, featuring American singer Khalid. His self-titled studio album was released on May 25, 2018, to positive critical reviews, with particular praise towards his songwriting and artistic growth. It debuted at number one in Canada, making it his third number one album in his home country. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, making Mendes the third-youngest artist to collect three number-one albums.