Sam Smith is nothing if not candid, and the Grammy and Oscar-Winning musician admitted in a wide-ranging interview with Jameela Jamil on her I Weigh Instagram series (in which he also discusses being nonbinary and genderqueer) that he got liposuction when he was just 12 years old to deal with his weight.
“When I was a kid, I was chubby … and then it would get worse and worse and worse and I was holding a lot of weight in my chest. When I hit 11 years old, I went to the doctor,” he shared. “I was so self-conscious that it was affecting my mood every day and my life as a teenager. I had liposuction, I was 12 years old.”
The now-26-year-old went on to explain that he had the procedure — which uses a vacuum-like instrument known as a “cannula” to break up fat and suck it out of the body — on his chest area, but it was only a temporary fix to a deeper problem.
“At the time I think I was very happy about it. It didn’t really change anything,” he explained. “I think I put the weight back on in two weeks because I hadn’t figured out my relationship with food, so it didn’t really change anything. But being 12 years old and having liposuction on your chest is quite a big deal.”
This is not the first time Smith has spoken about his weight. In an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker for V Magazine in 2018, the “Stay With Me” singer revealed that he remained uncomfortable in his skin even after a 50-pound weight loss earlier in his career. While he told her “body image is always going to be an issue,” it is something he is aware of and working through.
“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,” he said, adding: “I’ve gotten to a place where I really love my stretch marks and I just enjoy my body.”