- Shawn Mendes performed at Queen Elizabeth II's 92nd birthday celebration in April.
- Appearing on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on Thursday, he revealed his "awkward" encounter with the queen.
- At the celebration, he found himself backstage with the queen, but they didn't speak to each other.
- Mendes explained that according to royal custom, a person can only talk to the queen if she initiates the conversation.
- Aside from not speaking, Mendes said that Queen Elizabeth also "didn't look at me at all."
Shawn Mendes performed at Queen Elizabeth II's 92nd birthday celebration in April, and now he's revealing his awkward encounter with her.
Appearing on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on Thursday, Mendes recalled traveling to England's Royal Albert Hall to perform at the queen's birthday. Mendes was one of several artists who performed at the festivities, in addition to Kylie Minogue, Sting, and Shaggy.
Since Mendes is half British, his relatives were excited for him to be given the opportunity to perform for the queen — but things didn't go as smoothly as he hoped.
"I'm in this backstage area before you go on stage and I'm standing there waiting to go on stage and the Queen just walks up next to me and she's standing there," Mendes said.
According to Mendes, 10 minutes of silence followed, since he wasn't allowed to initiate a conversation with the queen as you have to wait for her to speak to you first (according to royal custom).
"And I'm looking at her, and you can't say anything," Mendes said. "You're not allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you first. So, it was like this 10 minutes of very awkward silence between me and the queen."
Aside from no spoken words between them, Mendes said that she also didn't seem to acknowledge his presence.
"She didn't look at me at all," he said. "I looked over a couple of times and I was like, 'I probably shouldn't even be looking.' It was super weird."
Watch Mendes recall the awkward encounter in the video below.
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