Nonbinary music artist Sam Smith announced their engagement on Tuesday in an interview with the New York Times.
Smith told the Times “with a giddy smile” that they are engaged to fashion designer Christian Cowan and explained that their new album – Hazel Eyes, which will be released on August 21 – is all about the couple’s love.
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Smith gushed that they had finally been able to write music about their own unbridled joy, rather than the heartbreak anthems that had first skyrocketed them to stardom.
They also spoke about finding this joy amid a dark time for the LGBTQ+ community. “For me, there’s something radical about being queer in this time, in this world, and singing love songs. I’m not going to allow the poison that I read and that I see to affect my way of loving.”
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Their New York home has become a haven for them. “I’m not the only freak on the street,” they said. “I’m surrounded daily by people that are too much. And I mean too much as a compliment.”
Smith came out as gay as a young child, and came out as nonbinary genderqueer in 2019.
They said during an interview with actress Jameela Jamil at the time, “I’ve always had a little bit of a war going within my body and my mind. I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I’ve questioned ‘Do I want a sex change?’ and it’s something I still think about, like: ‘Do I want to?’ But I don’t think it is. When I saw the words ‘non-binary’ and ‘genderqueer’ and I read into it, and I heard this people speaking, I was like ‘F*ck, that’s me.’”
A few years later, they said that changing their pronouns “felt like a coming home.” But they also opened up about the hate they endured while living in the UK.
“I can deal with not googling myself, not reading comments. That’s something I can control,” they explained during a 2023 appearance on The Zane Lowe Show. “What people don’t realize with trans non-binary people in the U.K. is it’s happening in the street. I’m being abused in the street verbally, more than I ever have.”
“So that was the hardest part, I think, was being at home in the UK and, like, having people shout at me in the street,” Smith said. “Someone spat at me in the street, it was crazy.”
Smith said they worry about how much worse younger LGBTQ+ people have it. “If that’s happening to me and I’m famous – I’m a pop star – can you imagine what other kids, like queer kids, are feeling? It’s just so sad, like, that we’re in 2023 and it’s still happening. Especially in England.”
At the time, they said they felt much freer to be themselves in the United States, where they sang at the White House ceremony celebrating President Joe Biden’s signing of the Respect for Marriage Act.
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