Shawn Mendes appeared to dip of out of the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards early following his “Nobody Knows” performance.
Mendes, 26, uploaded a video of himself smoking what appeared to be a cigarette and partying with friends as the awards show — hosted on Wednesday, September 11, at the USB Arena in New York — continued to go on. While it’s unclear when Mendes left the VMAs, the singer performed earlier on in the evening, just before Sabrina Carpenter.
Mendes’ name has been uttered in the same sentence as Carpenter, 25, following the release of her Short n’ Sweet album late last month. After the record was released, fans couldn’t stop talking about Mendes and his possible connection to Carpenter, which appeared to be laid out in her song lyrics. (Carpenter took the stage on Wednesday to sing a medley of “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso.”)
To make things even more sticky, Mendes’ ex-girlfriend Camila Cabello was also at the VMAs on Wednesday and performed her song “Godspeed.” Fans are convinced that this song choice was a shot at Mendes.
MTV VMAs 2024 Red Carpet Arrivals
TLDR: Mendes and Cabello, 27, broke up. He reportedly moved on with Carpenter but eventually reconciled — albeit briefly — with Cabello. They all appeared to sing songs about each other at the VMAs. Just like most singers, they’ve all declined to reveal who their songs are about, but some lines appear to be pretty telling.
Mendes even appeared to hint at this in an Instagram post before the VMAs started.
“Pulling up to my own funeral,” he captioned a series of photos, which raised some eyebrows.
Carpenter was first romantically linked to Mendes in February 2023, but Mendes has since denied that there was anything going on between them that went deeper than friendship.
“We are not dating,” he told Dutch TV’s RTL Boulevard the month after rumors started swirling.
By April 2023, however, Mendes had reunited with his ex-girlfriend Cabello, which pushed the idea of a relationship with Carpenter by the wayside. (Mendes and Cabello first dated from 2019 to 2021.)
Since Carpenter released Short n’ Sweet, questions have started to rise about what really went down between her and Mendes. In one track titled “Coincidence,” she is seemingly singing about a lover who got back with an ex shortly after they dated.
“The second I put my head on your chest / She knew, she’s got a real sixth sense,” the song’s lyrics read. “Now her name comes up once, then it comes up twice / And without her even bein’ here, she’s back in your life / Now she’s in the same damn city on the same damn night.”
There also might be a hint hidden in Carpenter’s “Juno,” which connects to a line in Mendes’ most recent release, “Why Why Why.” The song that’s made the most headlines as of late though is Carpenter’s “Taste,” which seems to be her message to a former fling.
“I heard you’re back together and if that’s true / You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you,” she sings. “If you want forever, I bet you do / Just know you’ll taste me too.”
When asked about this album overall, Carpenter played coy.
“It was not because I’m vertically challenged,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about the record’s title. “I thought about some of these relationships and how some of them were the shortest I’ve ever had, and they affected me the most.”
