Pop sensation Sam Smith has come out as gay. In an interview with The Fader, the crooner says that his debut album, In the Lonely Hour, is inspired by an unrequited love he had for a guy.
Not that the news has shocked anyone who has followed Smith's career. When tabloids claimed he was romantically linked to model Dasiy Lowe, Smith publically stated their relationship was platonic. On top of that, in his latest video, "Leave Your Lover," Smith has an intimate moment with a guy.
You can read the full interview here, but we've distilled it down to the best bits.
The Fader's Jessica Robertson asked about Smith's experience with love. Smith said that he'd never been in a relationship and his feelings for the unnamed gent who inspired the album weren't returned. "I've only been in unrequited relationships where people haven't loved me back," said Smith. "I guess I'm a little bit attracted to that in a bad way. In the Lonely Hour is about a guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn't love me back. I think I'm over it now, but I was in a very dark place. I kept feeling lonely in the fact that I hadn't felt love before. I've felt the bad things. And what's a more powerful emotion: pain or happiness?"
Smith said that his mystery crush knows that he inspired the album and that Sam found some closure in telling him. "It's all there now, and I can move on and hopefully find a guy who can love me the way I love him."
The "Latch" singer says he's "very comfortable and happy with everything" and has no problem talking about his sexuality. "I just wanted to talk about him and have it out there," he tells Robertson. "It's about a guy and that's what I wanted people to know--I want to be clear that that's what it's about. I've been treated as normal as anyone in my life; I've had no issues. I do know that some people have issues in life, but I haven't, and it's as normal as my right arm. I want to make it a normality because this is a non-issue."
Smith says that he was ambiguous about the gender of his muse on his album so that his music could touch more people. "I've tried to be clever with this album, because it's also important to me that my music reaches everybody" said the Cambridgeshire native. "I've made my music so that it could be about anything and everybody-- whether it's a guy, a female or a goat--and everybody can relate to that. I'm not in this industry to talk about my personal life unless it's in a musical form."
