Lead vocalist Dan Smith gets candid in a new magazine interview as he talks about his struggle with body confidence and how it led to him turning down a lot of offers.
- Oct 1, 2021
AceShowbiz - Bastille frontman Dan Smith has body dysmorphia.
The "Pompeii" hitmaker was a "pretty heavy kid" and, even though he shed "a load of weight" while at university, he still feels self-conscious and "awkward" about the way he looks.
Speaking to the first issue of Rolling Stone U.K. magazine, he said, "I think I was a pretty shy teenager, and I was a pretty heavy kid, too. In the summer of my third year of university, I ended up unintentionally losing a load of weight."
"I think I went from about 17 stone (238 lbs) to 11 stone (154 lbs) over a really short period, which was a pretty massive physical transformation. I'd always been a large kid and then a larger young adult, so that was stitched into my identity and how I saw myself. In a weird way, it's still how I see myself because those were my formative years."
"So even after losing a lot of weight, I've always been self-conscious and awkward about how I look. I've not ever articulated this publicly and I think I've just carried that kind of self-consciousness with me. I guess I probably have a level of body dysmorphia."
Dan admitted his insecurity stopped Bastille from appearing on TV and he even turned down the chance to be a judge on "The X Factor".
"Getting in front of the camera to do the things you do in a band has often felt odd and unnatural to me," he said. "We didn't do any television ever."
"I was turning down a lot of interviews and panel shows, being a judge on The X Factor and all these things that I just didn't want to do. They were all amazing offers, but it wasn't what I ever wanted out of this."
