Sam Smith kicked off 2018 by sitting down with pal (and longtime fan) Sarah Jessica Parker for a no-holds-barred V magazine interview.
The singer-songwriter, 25, looks more dapper than ever on the cover of the magazine’s “Discovery” issue, which hits newsstands on Jan. 11. His chat with Parker touches on everything from music to sexuality to his much-talked-about weight loss.
In between the release of his 2014 debut album, “In The Lonely Hour,” and its acclaimed 2017 follow-up, “The Thrill of It All,” Smith says he “became a gay man properly.” Most importantly, he adds, he’s had intimate relationships with other gay men, too.
“When I wrote that first album, I was in love with a straight man, he didn’t love me back, and I was very comfortable in my longing,” he said. “With this record, I became a gay man. I started having proper relationships with men. Sometimes they were in the wrong and treated me in a bad way, and sometimes I was in the wrong.”
Smith has, of course, had a few stumbles along the way. In 2014, he said the queer community’s use of dating apps like Grindr and Tinder was “ruining romance,” a comment widely interpreted as slut-shaming.
Two years later, Smith implied that he was the first openly gay man to ever win an Oscar when picking up the Best Original Song award for “Writing’s on the Wall” at the 2016 Academy Awards. It didn’t take long for other celebrities, media outlets and social media to point out the fact that he wasn’t.
But Smith isn’t deterred.
“I’m just figuring out what it means to be gay,” he said. “Also, I don’t have a lot to go by as a gay man in music: Even the George Michaels and Elton Johns weren’t out at the beginning of their careers.”
Though there’s been lots of buzz about Smith’s weight loss, he also shared that he still struggles with body image.
“When I was shooting my first music videos, I just wasn’t happy with the way I looked, so I was trying to control the way the camera moved,” he said. “I was constantly looking in the mirror, pinching my waist, weighing myself every day.”
While Smith has learned to “really love my stretch marks,” he added, “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. It’s something that I’m fighting every day. I think men should talk about it more.”
Smith also opened up about his new relationship. Though he doesn’t mention any names, the star has been photographed holding hands and kissing “13 Reasons Why” actor Brandon Flynn, 24, in New York and Florida in recent months.
“On a personal level, I’m in a relationship right now and for the first time, I think I deserve to be happy,” he said. “I’m actually asking myself if I’m going to be writing some happy love songs soon.”
Read the full V magazine interview here.