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While talking to Billboard, Shawn Mendes spoke about his battle with anxiety and how Taylor Swift helped him overcome his stage fright.  Talking with his manager Andrew Gertler and Melinda Newman, Billboard’s West Coast Editor, Shawn says, “She [Taylor] said to me one day, ‘Are you nervous?’…I said, ‘Yes. I just don’t want to mess up.’  She goes, ‘Everybody in the audience is there to have fun and support you. Nobody is there to judge.'”  Back in 2015, Shawn toured alongside Taylor on her 1989 World Tour and it was during this time that Taylor helped Shawn.

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Shawn explains, “From that moment, I really learned what it means to be a performer and it wasn’t about being perfect. It was about enjoying it.  Because you watch someone on stage and whatever they’re doing, if they’re really enjoying themselves, so are you. She went on stage every night to have fun, to enjoy and to like, beam happiness, because that’s what the live show is about. It wasn’t about being perfect. She’s perfect anyway, but that was the biggest thing I learned from her.”

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And if you didn’t already know, Shawn’s hit ‘In My Blood’ is inspired by his on-going struggle with anxiety.  Shawn told Zane Lowe from Beats 1, “It was kind of something that hit me within the last year. Before that, growing up, I was a pretty calm kid, super steady.  I knew people who had suffered from anxiety and found it kind of hard to understand, but then when it hits you, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, what is this? This is crazy.’ That song is complete truth and the best thing about it is, it’s not all down. The whole reason I wrote this song was to be like, at the end, ‘It’s not in my blood to do that.’”

Since 2015, Shawn has headlined his own world tours which turned out to be majorly successful and we can thank Taylor for her helpful advice!

Filed under: anxiety, shawn-mendes, Taylor Swift