Sam Smith opens up about coming out as nonbinary and falling in love

This story originally appeared on Them.

In a lengthy sit-down interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Sam Smith opened up about rising to fame and coming out as nonbinary in their twenties.

“The whole time, I’ve always been nonbinary,” Smith, 34, said, reflecting on the period following the release of their May 2014 debut album In the Lonely Hour, which was released when they were only 22 years old. “It’s always been who I am; I just found the vocabulary for that when I was like 27.”

The singer-songwriter, whose new album Hazel Eyes was released on August 21, came out as gay the same month as the release of their debut LP — and as nonbinary five years later, in 2019, telling Jameela Jamil, “I’m not male or female.” The announcement, as NBC News noted at the time, immediately made Smith one of the highest-profile nonbinary public figures, joining a small cohort of celebrities including Billions star Asia Kate Dillon and Transparent creator Joey Soloway. That list has since expanded considerably to include names such as Bella Ramsey, Emma Corrin, Janelle Monáe, and many more.

“So that was another coming out experience,” Smith told Lowe of their 2019. nonbinary announcement. “And finally, here we are, and I’m fully out the closet, and there’s no more coming out for me now, which is a really freeing thing.”

Smith has said that Hazel Eyes is an album about love, with many of the songs influenced by their relationship with their fashion designer fiancé Christian Cowan. On the lead single “My Guy,” Smith sings, “He’s all that I need / My morning star / Whenever he leaves / I know he won’t be far” — the sort of classic love song that, as Lowe observed, seems to mark a new chapter for the artist.

“It doesn’t sound claustrophobic or like it’s trying to wrestle its way out of any kind of restraint,” Lowe said. “There’s no restraint here.”

“No, it’s a record that is made with love,” Smith responded. “There is love woven through the whole thing.”

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Elsewhere in the interview, Smith opened up about Madonna reaching out to support them during the controversy surrounding their “Unholy” era, when right-wing commentators cruelly accused Smith of being a “groomer” over the song’s lyrics and imagery.

Despite the harrowing experience, Smith still found time during their conversation with Low to joke about the disingenuous, overblown response to “Unholy.” When the interviewer referred to their fourth album Gloria as a “full-blown exorcism” in the creative sense, Smith quickly replied, “Be careful saying that word. You’ll kick up the wrong people, I’ve learned.”

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