Shawn Peter Raul Mendes (, ; born August 8, 1998) is a Canadian singer-songwriter.
Shawn Peter Raul Mendes was born in Pickering, Ontario, on August 8, 1998, the son of English mother Karen (née Rayment) and Portuguese father Manuel Mendes.
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.
2012
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.
2013
He gained a following in 2013, when he posted song covers on the video sharing platform Vine.
The following year, he caught the attention of artist manager Andrew Gertler and Island Records A&R Ziggy Chareton, which led to him signing a deal with the record label.
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.
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.
2014
Mendes' self-titled debut EP was released in 2014, followed by his debut studio album Handwritten in 2015.
Handwritten debuted atop the US Billboard 200, making Mendes one of five artists ever to debut at number one before the age of 18.
The single "Stitches" reached number one in the UK and the top 10 in the US and Canada.
By August 2014, he was the third most-followed musician on Vine.
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.
2015
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.
2016
Mendes' second album Illuminate (2016) also debuted at number one in the US, with its singles "Treat You Better" and "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back" reaching the top 10 in several countries.
Mendes graduated from Pine Ridge Secondary School in June 2016, where he played ice hockey and soccer, joined his high school glee club, and practised his stage presence in acting lessons (leading as Prince Charming at one point).
He also auditioned for Disney Channel in Toronto.
2018
His self-titled third studio album (2018) was supported by the lead single "In My Blood".
The album's number one debut in the US made Mendes the third-youngest artist to achieve three number one albums.
In 2018, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world on their annual list.
2019
In 2019, he released the hit singles "If I Can't Have You" and "Señorita", with the latter peaking atop the US Billboard Hot 100.
2020
His fourth studio album, Wonder (2020), made him the youngest male artist ever to top the Billboard 200 with four studio albums.
Among his accolades, Mendes has won 13 SOCAN awards, 10 MTV Europe Music Awards, eight Juno Awards, eight iHeartRadio MMVAs, two American Music Awards, and received three nominations for a Grammy Award and one nomination for a Brit Award.
