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Shawn Mendes recently opened up about his struggle with body dysmorphia and how he couldn't "live up" to the photos he was in.
Papermag reported that Mendes became a brand ambassador for Calvin Klein back in 2019. Though the world loved the collab, Mendes felt uncomfortable.
He explained, "I was seeing myself shirtless on the monitor with my body oiled and I was like, 'The craziest thing about these photos is I can never live up to that guy.'"
Mendes said that he struggled to become the picture-perfect guy in those photos, but now he isn't even sure if that person is real.
Mendes told Wonderland:
"Any shoot where you're basically 'sexy' in any type of way can really mess with your psyche because you're struggling every day to live up to that guy. You know, the lighting was there, you have makeup and a hairstylist there. People are there to make you look amazing. And then they capture the photo for one second, and you look at it like, 'Wow.' But realistically, you can't really fit the shoes of that person in that photo—even as that person."
He said that after his Calvin Klein shoot, he didn't even want to be "that person."
He said:
"I don’t even know if that person is real. I felt like after my Calvin Klein shoot, I had body dysmorphia through trying to be that person all the time. It can’t happen. If I had heard that the artist or the person in the photograph was trying to say they couldn’t even be that person, I’d be like, 'Oh, I don’t need to be like that either.'"
Click here to read the full interview.