Shawn Mendes Artistfacts

August 8, 1998

Shawn Mendes was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and raised by his businessman father, Manuel Mendes, who is of Portuguese descent, and real estate agent mom, Karen, who is from England.
As a normal high school teen in Pickering, a suburb of Toronto, Shawn used to spend hours watching YouTube cover videos. One day, he uploaded a six-second Vine of himself singing Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me." There was a positive response, so he uploaded further six-second snippets of renditions of popular songs and within a matter of months, Shawn had picked up millions of views and followers.
Shawn signed to Island Records and released his first single "Life of the Party" in June 2014. The song debuted at #24 on the Hot 100 when Shawn was just 15 years, 11 months and 4 days of age. He was the youngest artist ever to debut in the chart's Top 25 with their first entry on the tally.
When his debut full-length album, Handwritten, topped the Billboard 200 chart, under a year later, Shawn became the youngest artist in five years to hold the position. (Justin Bieber had just turned 16 when his 2010 album My World 2.0 topped the chart.)
Asked by Digital Spy where he draws the inspiration for his songs, Shawn replied: "A lot of it actually comes from me just making up stories and trying to create emotion and put it into a song."
Shawn loves his breakfast cereal. He told You magazine that his favorite variety is "almond bran – I'm always eating it."
The first CD Shawn bought with his own money was his fellow Canadian Shania Twain's Come On Over.
Shawn Mendes first picked up a guitar at the age of 13. It was an old, out-of-tune classical guitar with broken strings that had been given to his dad. After messing around on it for a few weeks, Mendes asked him if they could get a proper guitar. They rented one and his father promised to buy him a guitar if he learned how to play the rented one within a fortnight. Mendes succeeded in doing so after learning how to play the instrument through YouTube tutorials.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Shawn Mendes said he has a daily routine that has three rules: Hit the gym every single day, take two vocal lessons per day and always pose for selfies when asked by fans.