Sam Smith has revealed they got surgery as a child to help deal with their insecurities, with their parents’ approval, and how it didn’t help long term.
The musician was interviewed on You star Penn Badgley’s podcast, Podcrushed, on 5th November and gave a rare candid insight into their childhood. When asked what it was like growing up queer in Cambridgeshire, Sam said they mostly experienced teasing for their weight instead.
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“For me, it was always my weight. My queerness was something that I could handle, and I could have a grasp on it. But my weight as a kid was the hardest thing for me in school, and weirdly the thing I probably got teased the most about,” the 33-year-old said.
To try to put an end to the bullying, they had liposuction surgery at just 13 years old. Lipo is a super invasive surgery, and involves putting a tube through the small intestines to suck out ‘stubborn’ fat.
“I had surgery on my chest when I was 13 years old because I had a growing chest,” Sam said. “There was all sorts of reasons why, but mainly that I was just getting so teased. I couldn’t go swimming in school, and getting changed in the locker room was hell. So I got liposuction when I was 13 years old.”
Despite Sam just being a child, their parents were fully supportive of the operation.
“[My parents] were hugely supportive of the whole thing because they just saw how much it was crippling everything about me,” the singer said.
They continued: “But honestly, 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 which is like a bra. I was only meant to wear it for a month, but if I wore the bandage, it meant that I would get to the front of the lunch queue because everyone had to be sensitive about my chest, so I kept this bandage on for nearly a year.”
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Sam said the liposuction was only a temporary fix, as the real core issue was their unhealthy relationship to food. Sam shared that their body image issues only got better when they learned to be kinder to themself.
In an interview with British GQ, Sam explained their new attitude towards self-love, saying: I think self-love is a great word, but self-acceptance to me is a little more accurate.”
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