Sam Smith has gone to “hell” and back.
That’s how the “Latch” singer described their young adulthood prior to making the decision to undergo liposuction.
“I had surgery on my chest when I was 13 years old, because I had a growing chest,” Smith explained on Wednesday’s new episode of Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed podcast. “There were all sorts of reasons why, but mainly, I was just getting so teased, I couldn’t go swimming in school, and I couldn’t — like, getting changed in the locker room was hell. So I got liposuction when I was 13 years old.”
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The turbulence of this tender time in Smith’s upbringing was clear even from their tone of voice while reflecting back. But they did remember their parents as “hugely supportive of the whole thing, because they just saw how much it was crippling everything about me.”
Getting into specifics, Smith recalled that it was “just all a struggle with food and stuff. And the liposuction, it worked, but it was also a nightmare because they gave me a bandage.” That bandage, which Smith was made to wear around their healing torso, wound up to be the undoing of the whole ordeal.
“If I wore the bandage, it meant that I would get to the front of the lunch queue,” Smith joked. “So I just kept this bandage on for nearly a year, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, don’t come close to me,’ and then I’d just get first at lunch… so the surgery never really worked.”
Smith went on to explain how they’ve grown to be much more comfortable in their skin. Opening up about the procedure has helped — something they first chose to do in 2019, five years after their debut album, In the Lonely Hour, broke them out to international stardom. At the time, Smith’s recollection about their age was a little different, however.
“I used to get my mom to write a note to the school when I was like eight, so I wouldn’t have to go to swimming lessons. So it’s something that’s been in me forever,” the singer told The Good Place actress Jameela Jamil then. “When I hit 11 years old, I went to the doctor’s. I was so self-conscious that it was affecting my mood every day. I had liposuction, I was 12 years old.”
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In 2023, Smith helped blaze a new trail by helping German pop star Kim Petras make Grammys history. Their baroque hit “Unholy” won them Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 2023 awards, making Petras the first openly trans winner in the ceremony’s history.
You can listen to the rest of Smith’s interview on Podcrushed above.