Sam Smith has spoken out about her raunchy new music video amid the public backlash.
In case you haven’t seen it, the singer has caused quite a stir with the video for her latest track, “I’m Not Here to Make Friends.” You can see Smith talking about the video here:
The video, which shows Smith in a variety of revealing outfits as well as scantily clad dancers wearing corsets and suspenders, has sparked debate about age restrictions for music videos.
Speaking about the song – and its headline-grabbing video – on The Graham Norton Show, Smith revealed that the inspiration for the track actually came from a date, explaining, “I was on a date with this guy and he was just… folks in the friend zone I go on dates a lot.
“And the next day I went into the studio and I was like, I’m fed up, I’ve had enough friends. I don’t need friends anymore.”
Sam Smith’s new video has garnered mixed reactions online. Photo credit: Universal MusicReferring to the video, Smith added, “It’s basically set in a castle. It’s like Henry VIII’s castle.”
They also reassured viewers, “Nothing shady happened folks. It wasn’t weird.”
Surprisingly, Smith also revealed that the castle had not been closed during filming, but that other visitors had no idea what was going on behind the closed doors.
Smith explained, “Yes, they had Christmas parties [going on]. They worked around us. They had no idea what was going on in the rooms.”
They later joked that “strange things had happened in that castle”.
Shortly after the video was released, it was met with backlash from some viewers who disagreed with its sexualized imagery.
In a post on Twitter, one person said: “No freaking need, they’re obviously sticky sexualized cops. As a mother of teenagers, I’m sick of seeing people use shit like this to sell their music.
“I would say that about anyone who posts a video like this.
“It’s not about #SamSmith’s gender, I don’t care about her gender.”
Smith posted to Twitter following the backlash. Photo credit: TwitterAnother said: “Can’t believe kids look up to @samsmith. This shit should be banned on YouTube.”
But Smith doesn’t mind the backlash her video has caused at all, telling Norton it even led to one of her favorite headlines: “Sam Smith horrifies OAPs” — quite a claim to fame.
And in a recent post on Twitter, Smith shared a photo of himself wearing a particularly OTT black feather outfit – complete with a huge headpiece – and wrote, “Never too much.”