In an interview with The Sunday Times, singer Sam Smith opened up about his sexuality and clarified that he doesn't identify as just a man or a woman (as the singer has not expressed a preference for other pronouns, we will continue to use "he" and "him" in our coverage).
"I don't know what the title would be, but I feel just as much woman as I am man," he told the U.K. outlet, going on to explain that he experiments with clothing and footwear ("I love a heel. I’ve got loads of heels at home.") and doesn't subscribe to just one way to dress.
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"There was one moment in my life where I didn't own a piece of male clothing, really," he explained. "I would wear full make-up every day in school, eyelashes, leggings with Dr. Martens and huge fur coats, for 2.5 years."
While Smith doesn't feel comfortable giving himself a label just yet, he definitely doesn't consider himself a cisgender male, pointing to the tattoos of Venus symbols that he got on his fingers. He does still identify as gay — something he casually announced in another magazine interview in 2014.
"It didn't feel like a coming out. I came out when I was, like, four years old," he told Ellen DeGeneres after the news broke. "My mom said she knew when I was, like, three, so I didn't have to actually properly come out…I came out at a very, very young age. I kind of felt like I just had to mention it before I released my record, just so people knew…who it was about, and it felt like a brave thing to do as well. I wanted to do it before, because…if I did it afterwards, people probably would have thought I was lying just to sell records, which is not the case."
He continued to reflect on the moment with the Times.
"Looking back on it, it was the fear of saying the wrong thing and offending… And I was 19 when I started writing the first album. I’d just moved to London from a village — I was literally the only gay in the village," he remembered. "I didn’t know what I wanted to say."
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Most recently, the singer made headlines after being spotted out and about with 13 Reasons Why actor Brandon Flynn, although neither has spoken publicly about the rumored relationship.
Smith's latest single, "Pray," is out now.