Shawn Mendes went public with girlfriend Bruna Marquezine while offering a rare glimpse into their relationship.
Mendes, 27, took to Instagram on Tuesday, August 4, to celebrate Marquezine’s 31st birthday with a sweet tribute, which read, “Feliz aniversário my baby.”
The musician praised Marquezine for her impact on him.
“You are a light and a mãe in every room you walk into. Not to be tooooo sappy but you’ve truly changed my life, and I am so so grateful for you,” he continued, adding a message in Portuguese, which translated to, “I love you so, so, so much. We all do amor.”
Mendes’ social media post included videos of him and Marquezine at Casa Amarela Providencia in Rio de Janeiro. He also shared several sweet photos of the couple, who have largely kept their romance out of the public eye.
The pair originally sparked romance rumors in December 2025. They have since been photographed together in Los Angeles and Marquezine’s home country of Brazil. Before finding love with Marquezine, Mendes dated Camila Cabello on and off from 2019 to 2023.
Mendes was later photographed with Sabrina Carpenter, after which he claimed he wanted to take the pressure off finding The One.
“When you’re single, there’s this pressure of looking for The One, who’s The One? … Damn, that’s a lot of pressure to put on someone when you first start dating,” he said at a concert in October 2024.
He added: “For me, I’ve just been trying to take that pressure off of whoever, and just allow myself to experience the love that is happening in that moment, wherever and however that’s happening. Man, we all need a little bit of cuddling, a little bit of hugging.”
Throughout his years in the spotlight, Mendes has been candid about facing speculation regarding his sexuality.
“In the back of my heart, I feel like I need to go be seen with someone — like a girl — in public, to prove to people that I’m not gay,” he told Rolling Stone in 2018. “Even though in my heart I know that it’s not a bad thing. There’s still a piece of me that thinks that. And I hate that side of me.”
Two years later, Mendes referred to the rumors as “frustrating.”
“There were some people in my life that I was very, very close to who were gay and in the closet. And I felt this real anger for those people,” he said during an episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast in December 2020. “It’s such a tricky thing. You want to say, ‘I’m not gay, but it’d be fine if I was gay — but also, there’s nothing wrong with being gay, but I’m not.’ You don’t really know how to respond to the situation.”
Mendes went on to reflect on finding a “divine middle ground” with his sexuality.
“I didn’t grow up wrestling. I grew up getting my hair braided on New Year’s Eve. It just completely depends on the way you grew up in your life and your surroundings,” he explained at the time. “I’m still a little bit more manly than that, so I don’t know, it’s a little confusing. So I’m just gonna let it be what it is.”
He continued: “Everyone’s been calling me gay since I was 15 years old. I’m not gay and I’m like, ‘What does that mean?’ I had these problems with the way my voice sounded. I’m like, ‘How do I sit?’ I’m always first to cross my legs and sit with a position of this feminine style and I really suffered with that s***. I think a lot of guys go through that, and even worse than that, there are so many guys who are gay and in the closet and must be hearing s*** like that and being like, ‘I’m terrified to come out.’”
