Earlier this year, Sam Smith was pictured using a cane and leg brace for support while walking around in New York. During a recent appearance on the podcast Sidetracked with Annie and Nick, the musician revealed that they needed the gear after tearing their ACL in a skiing accident.
“I completely ripped my ACL. I was skiing. I was an idiot and went on a black slope on the second day,” Smith explained. “I got taken down in a blood bag. It was the worst. It’s a permanent thing.” The ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, is a stabilizing knee ligament that takes an average of six to nine months to heal when injured.
“It’s in between your bones and helps you jump and spring around,” they added. “It completely ripped, and I decided to go down the non-surgical route, but I couldn’t walk for a month on this leg, and it was awful.”
Last year, Smith spent seven months on the road in support of their latest album, Gloria. It was a high-energy production that introduced more choreography into their set than either of their previous headlining tours. Coming off of that run only to be immobilized by a skiing accident was disorienting for the singer. “It was the first time I’d ever not been able to move, and I was holding onto a bit of weight,” they shared. “I was very anxious. I used it as an excuse to get my shit together.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Smith reflected on the release of their debut album, In the Lonely Hour, which was released a decade ago. They recently announced plans to release an updated recording of “Stay With Me” in celebration of the milestone anniversary, but also to reflect how they have evolved during that time. In the new version, rather than singing, “But I still need love ’cause I’m just a man,” Smith sings: “But I still need love, baby understand.”
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“For so many years, I’d sang the word man in ‘Stay With Me’ and didn’t have a problem with it. I spoke to loads of songwriters around me, and everyone was like, you know, it’s part of the past, and I tried to put it as that. But it is one of my biggest songs that people know me for,” Smith explained. “I sang at the White House for the protection of gay marriage in front of the president. I went out, and there was a huge crowd of queer people outside the doors of the White House singing, and it felt wrong to sing the word man as a non-binary person — so I changed the lyric on that day.”
They added: “It felt so nice to be relieved. Every time I sing the song, the word man would kind of spin me out just a little bit. Because it’s like that song can still mean so much to me now, so I wanted it to grow with me.”
