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Sam Smith: self love is not a destination, it’s a daily commitment

Mainstream appeal earned Sam Smith a slew of music awards, including an Oscar. Now, new album Gloria reveals a change in direction as they step into their queerness and care a lot less about what people think

It’s mid-afternoon in an east London photo studio and Sam Smith is crouched on the floor with leather straps fastened around their calves. Snap. They switch positions, standing at 6ft 4ins tall in chunky, cyberpunk platform boots and squinting down the camera lens. Snap. They remove their sleeveless denim jacket and swing it behind one shoulder for “movement”. Snap. They’re wearing a badge reading “THEY/THEM” in capital letters, and another reading “QUEER”. Snap. ‘Disturbia’ by Rihanna is blasting out of the speakers. Snap. Snap. Snap. “And that’s a wrap!” someone yells as Smith exhales slowly, before striding over to introduce themself. “Sorry, I just realised I’m not wearing any trousers,” they say, sheepish all of a sudden, one dangly earring glinting in the superficial light of the photography studio.

The Smith in front of me is a far cry from the Smith that we first encountered in the early 2010s. Which makes sense — that was a whole decade ago. Back then — around the release of their 2014 debut album In the Lonely Hour — they’d show up on the red carpet in muted two-piece suits and smart, sensible shoes. They were the kind of artist that you would expect to perform heartbreak ballads on peak-era The X Factor and make your nan tear up on the sofa. This broad mainstream appeal and ‘palatability’ — paired with a capital ‘G’ good voice that Beyoncé once described as being “like butter” — meant that they were always destined to sell an obscene amount of records. Which they did: In the Lonely Hour sold over 20 million copies. They won four Grammys, four MOBOS and three Brit Awards. Insane behaviour for a debut album. But also somewhat expected from an artist who had been so diligently positioned next to the Adeles and Ed Sheerans of the British music landscape.

Fast-forward to now, however, and Smith has undergone a kind of renaissance — personally, publicly, musically. In the video for recent viral bop, ‘Unholy’, featuring US popstar Kim Petras, they dance seductively on stage in a BDSM-style harness and sparkling gloves. “Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot / At the body shop, doing something unholy,” they sing in a snappy, gospel-flecked chorus that you must know by now if you’ve spent any time on TikTok. Within days of the track dropping, young girls, queer kids and rap boys alike were remixing and emulating its infectious, rhythmic, feel-yourself choreography. Christian TikTok had a field day, dubbing the song “demonic”. Meanwhile, the comments beneath live clips were what you’d expect when a queer artist dares to step into their sex appeal. “Bruh what happened?” read comments from disgruntled straight boys with 10 followers and square haircuts. “Slaaaayyyyy” and “QUEEN” were among the messages from elated young fans hooked on this shiny new banger.

‘Unholy’ also made music history: Sam Smith and Kim Petras became the first openly non-binary and trans musicians, respectively, to reach number one in the UK and US. No small feat at a time when transphobic narratives on both sides of the pond appear to have reached fever pitch. It didn’t just top the charts in English-speaking territories, but also in countries like Slovenia and Singapore, where the common narrative is less than embracing of queer identities. In that sense, ‘Unholy’ was a line in the sand. For Smith, yes — but also, more crucially, for what people actually want from their pop stars in the 2020s, and from mainstream music more generally.

Sam Smith and I are now sprawled across a well-worn studio sofa. The cameras have been packed away, the speakers turned off and various teams have left the room for late lunches or a quick vape. “Do you want me to move this so that you can hear better?” they ask, picking up my Dictaphone and angling it closer to their mouth. It’s one of many subtle clues that Smith has been doing this for a very long time now. Earlier, while filming talk-to-camera videos, I watched Smith answer questions with the softly spoken, well-practised air of a major-label, media-trained pop star. “Do you want me to state the question first?” they politely ask the interviewer, before launching into rounded soundbites, smoothly delivered, very little wavering.

Being palatable and ‘fitting in’ is something which has defined Smith’s trajectory up until fairly recently. Mainly because “being queer in this world is still tough”, so they did what they needed to in order to assimilate. As a teenager, Smith says, they “wore all-female clothing and full makeup in school”. When they moved to London, at 19, as a music and nightlife-loving teenager, “I was walking round the streets and I was even more dressed up than I would be now. People would stare at me. I became exhausted with that.” After a while they started “exploring a more masculine wardrobe and setting”. They’re careful not to say that they were ever pushed into watering themselves down by any label or music industry higher-ups, instead saying: “It just so happened that as I started to explore that, my music started to get picked up.”

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