Just days after beginning his Wonder World Tour, singer Shawn Mendes has announced a three week break for his mental health.
Taking to Instagram to make the announcement, Mendes said the decision was heartbreaking.
“I’ve been touring since I was 15 and to be honest it’s always been difficult to be on the road away from friends and family,” he wrote. “After a few years off the road, I felt like I was ready to dive back in, but that decision was premature and unfortunately the toll of the road and the pressure has caught up to me and I’ve hit a breaking point.”
The singer added: “After speaking with my team and health professionals, I need to take some time to heal and take care of myself and my mental health, first and foremost.”
The US/Europe tour kicked off in Portland, US last month and was due to run through until August 2023. Mendes has not yet announced when the new shows will take place.
It’s the second time Mendes has recently made an announcement about his mental health – back in December, he posted a video to Instagram discussing his issues with social media and how writing music helped him process things.
“I think when I make music the ultimate goal is to kind of be sitting there and have some sort of my own truth revealed to me,” he said. “A lot of the time when I’m writing songs, I’m usually using music as a platform to be able to get to a place inside of myself that I wouldn’t be able to get through by just talking with people, or thinking about it.”
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After finding fame through Vine in 2013, Mendes began opening up about his struggles with anxiety in his 2018 track, ‘In My Blood.’
“I spoke to a therapist a couple of times… Therapy is what works for you. Therapy is listening to music and running on the treadmill, therapy is going to dinner with your friends — it’s something that distracts you, that helps you heal and so it just depends on what you think therapy is,” he said on The Dan Wootton Interview podcast.
“I made a conscious effort to be more connected to the people in my life. I found I was closing myself off from everybody, thinking that would help me battle it then realising the only way I was going to battle it was completely opening up and letting people in.”
