Sam Smith Shared The Painful Reason For Their Early Toned Down Style

Sam Smith has opened up about their gender identity, fashion changes, and upcoming music in a new interview with GQ UK.

The singer-songwriter, who identifies as nonbinary, feels like they’re just really coming into their own when it comes to fashion. Gone are the days of the black suits and plain faces. Now they are playing with different fabrics and eyeliner. “I used to be so scared of fashion,” they explain. Their stylist, Ben Rearden, helped them start “from the basics. He just started to introduce me to clothes that just fit in the right place on my body and matched the way I felt inside. And having fun with it. I like funny things. And so we’ve leaned into that more, and my personal wardrobe has got a bit of humour to it.”

Smith reveals that they largely left their makeup and colorful clothes behind in their early 20s when they moved to London after getting assaulted in the street. They were working at a pub and one day after their shift, Smith says “someone kind of went for me in the street. When I was walking, listening to music, they hit me. In my neck. That was a bit of a turning point for me. Where I just... I was like, this is exhausting. I remember I’d get on the train every day in my makeup. And it was just everyone looking at me all the time. I’d been doing it since I was 15. And I started to get really exhausted. I used to have to blare music in my ears just to drown out the comments because I’m so sensitive, it would ruin my day. So after that, I started to just wear jeans and a T-shirt. And it wasn’t as sad as it sounds, because I felt a lot of relief when that happened. I started to not put as much makeup on and tone it down, and suddenly everything just became a bit calmer in my life. And that felt good.”

That was right around the time their song with Disclosure began to take off, and just before “Stay With Me” became a worldwide hit. “This is what I think people don’t understand: that the first five years of my career, I almost felt like I was a woman, at times, dressing up in male clothing. It didn’t feel like I was regressing in any way. It just felt like I was trying new things out.”

Then Smith says they got a bit bored of that image, as well as the box the world had put them in. “That’s when I realized that I felt a bit trapped. Like, ‘Oh, wow, people think this is who I am and what I’ve always been. And so if I change this now and go a bit more experimental with my clothes, it’s gonna ruin this brand that’s been created,’ you know? So that was weighing on my shoulders for a few years.”

The world saw them as a gay male, and Smith never quite felt like they fit. “I’ve always felt queer. I’ve always felt gender non-conforming. And I’ve always felt nonbinary trans. My whole life. And it wasn’t until I had to sit in interviews every day and tell people my story again and again and again that I realized this narrative that was being created was only a small fraction of who I was.”

Smith credits their romantic relationships for some of their progress. “I’ve always been nonbinary, and I think the people that have been with me romantically have always known that too. If anything, they’ve helped direct me to it. I’ve only had three boyfriends. All of them, equally, were just incredible teachers. And I think that now, it’s definitely changed how I am in relationships because I don’t need another person to direct me to me. I direct them to me myself. Because I know who I am. And it’s beautiful. Every single relationship is different. Every two people are different. And I think it’s just learning your own language together.”

Smith also teases their new music. Just last week, they released their viral TikTok bop with Kim Petras, and it’s expected to do very well on next week’s charts. Their upcoming songs include “Lose You”, described as “a spacey dance track, conjures the continental cool of Christine and the Queens” and “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” which “opens with a Paris is Burning sample and features strings lifted straight from the peak disco era.” But while many feel Smith’s new music is queerer than ever, they maintain that everything they’ve put out is undeniably queer.

“I do find it hard sometimes when people may think that my music’s got queerer, because to me, it hasn’t,” they point out. “The subject matter of my songs [has] always been about men I’ve been in love with. They’ve always been queer. And I don’t enjoy the fact that to be queer, it has to be dance music. I think queer music can be country, it can be folk, it can be jazz, it can be anything.” Their older music “was and is queer,” just like their music today.

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