Sam Smith is the oldest child of Frederick, a house husband, and Kate Cassidy, who worked as a trader for the City broker Tullett Prebon.
After hearing 8-year-old Sam singing Whitney Houston's "
My Love Is Your Love" in the car one morning on the way to school, Frederick Smith arranged singing lessons with a local jazz musician, Joanna Eden. Sam sang Frank Sinatra's "
Come Fly With Me" in the first lesson, and the soundtrack to
Cats in the second. Sam was often a backing singer for Joanna Eden at small London gigs.
Much of Sam's childhood and adolescence was spent in theater rehearsals, and his mother often asked Sam to perform for friends and business colleagues at dinner parties.
In 2009 Kate Cassidy was fired from her job for gross misconduct, amid claims she was spending company time on Sam's pop career. Smith told The Daily Telegraph that the episode only served to intensify his determination to succeed. "There's a fire in me," they said. "There's a fire that ignited in me on the day that happened."
Smith moved to London at the age of 18 and got a job as a barman, where they met songwriter Jimmy Napes. Together, they wrote "
Lay Me Down," which Napes forwarded to Disclosure's managers in 2012. Smith co-wrote "
Latch" that same year, a collaboration with the house duo that proved to be Sam's breakthrough hit.
Smith was still working at the bar when he recorded "Latch." Sam explained to
Entertainment Weekly: "You could hear it in my voice that I wanted to be doing something else. There's a real hunger behind that song."
In 2013, Smith was the featured vocalist on another hit tune: Naughty Boy's "
La La La." Sam told
The Guardian: "I think being a feature is lovely because you get to practice your trade a bit before you dive fully into something. It has also exposed me to loads of different types of music. I was going for an acoustic sound when I first started out, but having done Latch and La La La, there's more of a reason to be limitless in the way I'm writing."
Smith launched a solo career with "
Money On My Mind," which topped the UK singles chart dated March 1, 2014. The US breakthrough came with Smith's second solo release, "
Stay With Me," which peaked at #2 on the Hot 100.
Taylor Swift was a fan of Sam Smith early on, and brought Smith out on stage during her show at The O2 to sing "Money On My Mind."
"Oh I was sh--ting myself," Smith recalled to
Digital Spy, "it was very intense. I actually forgot my words for the first part of my own song because I was so nervous."
In The Lonely Hour, Sam Smith's debut album, sold 166,000 copies in its initial week in the US. This was more than any other debut album by a UK male artist (as Smith was identifying at the time) in its first seven days since Soundscan started tracking sales in 1991.
In May 2014, Smith came out as gay, revealing on the show Ellen that Smith's family knew from an early age. "It didn't feel like a coming out. I came out when I was like four years old," Smith laughed. "My mum said she knew when I was, like, three. I kind of just felt like I needed to mention it before I released the record so people knew what it was about. And it felt like a brave thing to do as well I wanted to do it before because if I did it afterwards people probably would have thought I was lying just to sell records."
Many of the tracks on In the Lonely Hour were inspired by Sam Smith's unrequited love for another man. He revealed to Radio.com: "When I was writing this album, I really delved into that fact. I delved into [how] I fell in love with someone who didn't love me back, last year. I really went inside myself and I wanted to write an album for lonely people, because I don't think there's been enough music out there that talks about unrequited love."
Sam Smith is Lily Allen's third cousin, but according to Smith they never met until Sam found success as a singer, as Sam's family is "huge."
Sam Smith came out as non-binary in March 2019. Speaking to actress Jameela Jamil, the singer said they feel "like a woman sometimes" and has considered having a sex change. Six months later, the singer asked fans to use the pronouns "they/them," not "he/him."
