The British singer gets candid in the first episode of Jameela Jamil's Instagram-based show 'I Weigh Interviews'.
- Mar 16, 2019
AceShowbiz - Sam Smith delved deep into personal issues when he stopped by Jameela Jamil's show "I Weigh Interviews". In the first episode of the Instagram-based show, the British singer revealed that he identifies himself as non-binary and genderqueer after struggling with his gender identity for a long time.
"When I saw the nonbinary, genderqueer, and I read into it, and I heard these people speaking, I was like, 'F**k, that is me,' " he said. "Nonbinary, genderqueer is that you do not identify in a gender -- you are just you. You are a mixture of all different things. You are your own special creation. That's how I take it: I'm not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between. It's all on the spectrum."
He continued, "I've always been very free in terms of thinking about my sexuality, so I've just tried to change that into my thoughts on gender as well."
Elsewhere in the interview, the "Stay with Me" singer discussed his struggles with body image "from since I can remember, like since I was a baby." He revealed that when he was still a child, he was "chubby" and "carried extra estrogen" in his chest, making him self-conscious to wear a bathing suit. This resulted in him getting bullied, with a classmate grabbing his chest "on the playground in front of all of his friends."
Sam went on explaining that the weight in his chest kept getting worse, so he had liposuction at age 12. "At the time I think I was very happy about it. It didn't really change anything. I think I put the weight back on in two weeks because I hadn't figure out my relationship with food, so it didn't really change anything," he explained. "But being 12 years old and having liposuction on your chest is quite a big deal."
Talking about why he decided to open up about his struggles with body image, Sam noted, "I haven't really found many men talking about this. Especially well-known men... Even doing this chat feels kinda weird, because guys don't speak about this that much on a big scale."
A few months ago, I sat down with @jameelajamil and spoke with her for her incredible @_iweigh movement. I know this sounds dramatic but this interview completely changed my life. Watch in full on my IGTV now (please be kind haha) xx pic.twitter.com/IMDLSUayso
— Sam Smith (@samsmith) March 15, 2019
Following the interview, Sam took to his Twitter account to share that doing the interview "completely changed" his life.