Shawn Mendes Recounts His Awkward Encounter With Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, And The Queen

Shawn Mendes is speaking out about rubbing shoulders with royalty ahead of the upcoming royal wedding – only it turns out he didn’t exactly have the best time when it came to meeting Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and the Queen of England last month. Per Entertainment Tonight Canada, the Canadian singer spoke about his encounter with the royals during a recent appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he revealed that things didn’t really go to plan when it came to meeting the British royal family.

Mendes started out by revealing what happened when he was given the opportunity to meet Queen Elizabeth when he performed at her 92nd birthday party at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London last month.

“I’m standing there [in the backstage area] waiting to go on stage and the Queen just walks up next to me,” Shawn recalled to Ellen, admitting that he then stood there in silence after being told not to speak to the British monarch unless she spoke to him first.

“You’re not allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you first, so it was like this very… 10 minutes of awkward silence between me and the Queen,” Mendes said of what happened when he was in the queen’s company, joking that he looked over at her a few times in an attempt to initiate a conversation with her, but she clearly wasn’t interested in actually speaking to him.

“She didn’t look at me at all,” the “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back” singer recently said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I looked over a couple of times and I was like, ‘I probably shouldn’t be looking.'”

And as if that wasn’t awkward enough for the 19-year-old star, Shawn revealed that things then got even more awkward when he was given the chance to meet the queen’s grandson and his fiancee, Meghan Markle.

Mendes explained on the daytime talk show this week that he attempted to talk to the couple after seeing them in the backstage area, where he was also seen chatting to fellow performer Sting, but his beeline over to the royal couple ended up turning into a loop right back out the door.

“I was walking down the halls, and I see them in one room,” Shawn explained of spotting the royal couple backstage at the show. “I walked in with this confidence and the second they kind of felt me coming, I just turned around. My body went numb and I was like, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it.'”

Mendes, who recently attended the MET gala with Hailey Baldwin, revealed that instead of introducing himself to them, he just turned around and exited the room again without properly meeting either Harry or Meghan, joking that he entered the room and then left it again all “in one flow of motion.”

Shawn then admitted to Ellen that he believed the seriously awkward moment blowing his chance to meet Prince Harry and Meghan Markle while attending the queen’s birthday event in London will be his “biggest regret forever.”

As reported by iHeartRadio Canada, Mendes previously called being a part of the event a “huge honor” after taking to the stage.

Shawn tweeted after his performance that it was “such an incredible night.”