Singer Sam Smith got liposuction at 13 after school teasing over ‘growing chest’

English singer-songwriter Sam Smith has opened up about a difficult childhood and how it led to getting liposuction as a teenager.

“I had surgery on my chest when I was 13 years old because I had a growing chest,” the 33-year-old disclosed on the interview podcast Podcrushed, released on Nov 5, adding “there were all sorts of reasons why” the liposuction was performed.

“Mainly, I was just getting so teased, I couldn’t go swimming in school... and getting changed in the locker room was hell.”

Having parents who acknowledged the concerns helped.

“They were hugely supportive of the whole thing, because they just saw how much it was crippling everything about me,” said the Grammy winner on the show co-hosted by American actor Penn Badgley, where guests share their middle school memories.

But the liposuction was not completely without complications, Smith added.

While the surgery was effective, the post-operative treatment – which included wearing a compression bandage across the chest – was lengthy.

It was a “nightmare” because “I was supposed to wear it for just a month, but I ended up keeping it on for nearly a year”, said Smith.

Deliberately extending the period of bandage-wearing gave Smith certain advantages, but the struggling teenager’s food compulsions undermined the positive effects of the surgery.

“If I wore the bandage, it meant that I would get to the front of the lunch queue, so I just kept this bandage on for nearly a year, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, don’t come close to me’, and then I’d just get first at lunch and I’d eat more and eat more and eat more.

“So the surgery never really worked because I just love food,” said the performer, who came out as non-binary in 2019 and is best known for hits like Stay With Me (2014) and Writing’s On The Wall (2015).

In 2019, in a conversation with British actress Jameela Jamil on the Instagram series I Weigh Interviews, Smith spoke of suffering from body image issues even as a pre-teen.

“I used to get my mum to write a note to the school when I was like eight, so I wouldn’t have to go to swimming lessons. So it’s something that’s been in me forever. When I hit 11 years old, I went to the doctor. I was so self-conscious that it was affecting my mood every day.”