AceShowbiz - Clay Aiken got a little too curious about Shawn Mendes' personal life during a recent interview and it doesn't sit well with the latter's fans. The openly gay singer/actor has been slammed by social media users after bizarrely questioning the Canadian pop star's sexuality mid-interview.

During a sit-down with Variety to promote his new Christmas album "Christmas Bells Are Ringing", the "American Idol" alum suddenly asked reporter Rebecca Rubin, "By the way, did Shawn Mendes come out today?"

"Have you seen this video on his Instagram? I didn't finish watching it because I looked at the time and I was like, 'Oh God, I gotta get on the computer.' So I don't know if he really did," the "Invisible" hitmaker asked the interviewer. He added, "I shouldn't out him if he didn't."

When asked how he felt about people speculating about Shawn's sexuality, Clay, who came out as gay in 2008, reflected on how much the media discussed his sexuality back then. "I feel like no one has speculated about s**t since 2000 - since I went through that c**p," he claimed.

"I joke that after I came out publicly, it stopped being a story. I don't know that anybody has had press in that way, like tabloid stories or questions by Diane Sawyer," he continued. The 45-year-old suggested that readers likely "got bored" with the topic.

Clay also said that America "came to terms" with "gays a little better" after the military policy "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ended in 2011. "We have insisted our media become more empathetic," he opined. "Press can't invade in the way they used to be able to invade. And that's great."

The former "The Celebrity Apprentice" contestant then apologized, saying he "didn't mean to derail" the interview, adding that clips of Shawn "just came up on [his] screen right before [he] turned on the computer."

Despite Clay's excuse, people have come to Shawn's defense and blasted the former for his unwarranted remarks about the "In My Blood" crooner. "Leave Shawn alone. He doesn't owe anyone anything," one user wrote, while another called Clay "creepy." Someone else mocked Clay, "Lol forgot all about Clay Aiken."

It's unclear which video Clay was referring to, but Shawn recently addressed constant speculation about his sexuality during his performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in late October. "I was really young when I started. I was 15 years old," he said onstage. "The truth is that I didn't get to do a lot of 15-year-old things and discover parts of myself that you do at 15."

"Since I was really young, there's this thing about my sexuality, and people have been talking about it so long," he continued. "I think it's kind of silly, because I think sexuality is such a beautifully complex thing, and it's so hard to just put into boxes."

Mendes expressed that the constant speculation about his sexuality felt like an intrusion on something very personal. "It always felt like such an intrusion on something very personal to me. Something that I was figuring out in myself, something that I had yet to discover and still have yet to discover it," the 26-year-old further shared.