The pop star also shares what he thinks his girlfriend would call his biggest weakness.
Shawn Mendes is definitely aware of his strengths, weaknesses and everything in between. The 22-year-old chart-topper appeared on the Man Enough podcast, where he spoke with activist Liz Plank, actor Justin Baldoni, and collaborator Jamey Heath about his greatest fear and what his girlfriend, Camila Cabello, would define as his greatest strength and biggest weakness.
When asked about his biggest fear, Mendes recalled a recent fight he had with Cabello.
"I raised my voice at her and she was like, 'I don't like it when you raise your voice. Why did you raise your voice?' And I got so defensive," he admitted. "I was like, 'I wasn't raising my voice at you!' And I did raise my voice at her. And I felt her shrink and I felt me grow and I was like, 'Oh god, this is the worst.' I'm so terrified of being evil. I'm so scared to be bad."
His fear of "being evil" then prompted him to get into a "massive conversation" with Cabello about how being defensive about doing something wrong caused him to raise his voice.
"Maybe there even is bad inside of me, and I have to just accept that that exists," he continued. "And that other part of me, he's just got to be here and we've just got to work together until eventually he gets worked in all of the trauma and all of the kinks get rubbed out of him and he's OK. But I can't avoid the fact that there's a little bit of darkness inside of me and letting that darkness kind of be present is a horrible feeling."
When co-host Heath asked if Mendes apologized and corrected his behavior toward Cabello or if his explanation led his longtime girlfriend to "comfort" him, Mendes admitted it was the latter.
"I made it about my evil and my fear, and she comforted me," he shared. "And then it took me like 20 minutes of us separately reading our books to be able to come back to her and be like, 'God, that was a whole thing and I'm really sorry.'"
Mendes explained that he's working on "shortening that gap."
"You think you're being vulnerable but really you're just defending yourself even better," he said.
Later in the interview, the musician was asked what he thinks Cabello would identify as his greatest strength and his biggest weakness.
"My greatest strength, I think she would say is my truth, my ability to be honest, tell the truth," he shared. "I think she would say my [weakness] is my commitment to being a 'good guy.'"
The musician opened up to ET back in December about him and Cabello both being famous singer-songwriters and how that affects their relationship.
"We really don't put any rules or boundaries on what we are writing about or in our art," he said at the time. "I think the truth about being celebrities and being in a relationship is that it's super tricky, because there are a lot of people who want to know more than what is maybe normal just to give out, they want more personal stuff. But both of us realize that it is just sometimes you say something that maybe you shouldn't have, and someone asks you a personal question and you answered it because you were off guard and, you know, you can't really do much about it. It's just kind of the nature of the beast."
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