Singer Sam Smith recently got a tattoo of a young boy wearing just underwear and high heels, staring at himself through a full-length mirror, a likely nod to the pop star’s gender-bending identity.
London Social Tattoo shared a photo of tattoo artist Miles Langford posing with Smith on its Instagram page. The post also included a photo of the singer’s tattoo, alongside the caption, “[Sam Smith] thank you! Swipe to see their new tattoo from [Miles Langford].”
The tattoo on Smith’s arm depicts a young boy standing in front of a full-length mirror, wearing just his underwear and high heels.
The image was first spotted by Page Six, which noted that while both Smith and Langford didn’t comment on the meaning of the tattoo, the singer has nonetheless been open about his love for high heels and identifies as “non-binary,” using the pronouns, “they, them, and theirs.”
Smith, who came out as gay in 2014, later hinted to his non-binary identity in 2017, telling the Sunday Times, “I feel just as much woman as I am man.”
“I love a heel,” Smith said. “I’ve got loads of heels at home.”
“When I was 17, I remember becoming obsessed with Boy George and Marilyn, and all that,” the singer continued. “There was one moment in my life where I didn’t own a piece of male clothing, really. I would wear full make-up every day in school, eyelashes, leggings with Dr. Martens and huge fur coats, for 2 ½ years.”
In 2019, the Grammy winner expressed that when he later discovered the terms “non-binary” and “genderqueer,” he reacted by thinking, “fuck, that is me,” according to a report by Complex.
“When I saw the word non-binary/genderqueer and I read into it and I heard these people speaking, I was like, ‘fuck, that is me,'” Smith said. “Non-binary/genderqueer is that you do not identify in a gender. You are a mixture of all different things. You are your own special creation.”
“That’s how I take it — I am not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between — it’s all on the spectrum,” the singer added. “I’ve always been very free in terms of thinking about my sexuality, so I’ve just tried to change that into my thoughts on gender as well.”
Smith has also discussed his struggle with weight, disclosing that he had liposuction at the mere age of 12 in an interview with Jameela Jamil on an episode of her Instagram series, I Weigh.
“I had breasts,” said Smith. “And I had liposuction. I was 12 years old, had liposuction, day operation, and that was a big thing.”
“It didn’t really change anything,” Smith added. “I think I put the weight back on in, like, 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,” he added.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.
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