Sam Smith Revealed That They Finally Love Their Body And Have the Opposite of Body Dysmorphia. “I Look Fabulous”
The path to self-acceptance is not always an easy one. It’s not uncommon to face misunderstandings and doubts. Musician Sam Smith has worked on themselves for years, to finally be able to say out loud: “I look fabulous.” Their example proves that neither popularity nor money can replace the pleasure of being yourself.
Sam Smith burst into the music industry at just 20 years old. As a performer and songwriter, they’ve been involved in music since childhood. At a young age, however, they faced bullying at school for their gynaecomastia and even had to undergo liposuction at the age of 12. Years later, Smith admitted, “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 figured out my relationship with food, so it didn’t really change anything.”
Smith’s popularity grew every year. In 2015, they won four Grammy awards, and a year later they received the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Alongside their success, however, the musician was struggling with a constant battle of accepting their appearance.
Before the release of their 2017 album The Thrill of It All, Smith lost 50 pounds. In an interview, Smith shared, “Within my industry there is definitely that question of, ‘What should a pop star look like?’ When I was 25 I came off tour exhausted. I looked to role models in the body world.”
In 2018, Smith revealed to the public the reasons behind their drastic weight loss. Smith didn’t like the way they looked in their first videos, experiencing enormous pressure from having to think about the best angles and camera movement. Losing weight didn’t solve their self-esteem problems. Smith said, “My body image is always going to be an issue. I need to constantly train myself to watch the right sort of films, to not look at certain ads and think that’s how my stomach should look”.
However, Smith found the strength to put an end to the mad race for the perfect body. In 2019, they posted a topless photo of themselves on Instagram. The post was accompanied with some candid text about how they had to go on a diet for weeks before the photo shoot, even for the pictures that weren’t topless. They concluded by saying that this was only the first step in the war against the mirror. Smith received strong support from fans, who in the comments shared stories of their own struggles and expressed admiration for their bravery.
Now in their 30s, Smith has finally overcome insecurities about their appearance and bravely posts more candid photos. In an interview in 2023, they recalled how, in their childhood, their parents tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade them to undress to go swimming in the pool. The musician is happy to report that this is no longer a problem.
Today, Smith loudly declares that they’re non-binary, something they previously hadn’t dared to do. At the start of their career, they feared that being so open would make them too vulnerable: “I just think asking a 24-year-old to be their 100 percent self in front of 20,000 people was never going to happen. I showed 70 percent of who I was then and a lot of that has to do with me being gay.” Years later, however, Smith came to the conclusion that the disclosure of their non-binary nature has set them free: “I ran into this world and it was not the world I thought it was. I was afraid to express certain things, my happiness within the music.”