They're back, ladies and gentlemen - Sam Smith is back to cause chaos, and this time they've come equipped with their fourth studio album as well as a raunchy new music video.
Following the release of Gloria, the 30-year-old has given fans a bold visual extravaganza for their new music video 'I'm Not Here to Make Friends' - so much so that it's now led people to question whether music videos of a similar nature deserve to have age restrictions.
The video features Smith in various different iconic 'fits, including a hot pink feathered gown, exuding immense confidence, as one would expect from a person capable of writing 'Unholy.'
In one particular scene, we see them performing with a bunch of scantily-clad dancers wearing only an underbust corset with bedazzled lingerie and a matching tiara, as well as nipple covers and platform heels, making for a risqué look overall.
Watch the full music video below:And things only got more heated as the four-minute video was brimming with sexual innuendos, including a scene where Smith crouched over three people in heart-shaped cut-out corsets with their butts pushed in the air, before their eyes rolled to the back of their heads when doing so.
However, some viewers thought the move was a bit too NSFW, as water sprayed suggestively all over the ensembled group.
Taking to Twitter, people couldn't help but talk about the nature of the scenes, with many suggesting that videos like Smith's deserve an age restriction.
Sean Kent, a comedian, tweeted: "Call me old-fashioned but the music video of Sam Smith being p**sed on by other men should probably have an age restriction," while social media personality Oli London also agreed with the stance saying:
"YouTube does not have any age restrictions on Sam Smith's degrading sexualised new music video. 5 year olds can search this up and watch it with no content restrictions! Sam Smith, this is not art. This is not trendy. This is not empowering.
"This is monstrous!"
They then followed up their views with another tweet telling fans: "Until YouTube puts an age restriction on Sam Smiths Music video, I will continue to call [them] out. We cannot allow the music industry to keep pushing such depraved videos on kids. Whether it’s Cardi B WAP or Sam Smith these videos should not be accessible to kids."
Another added: "Sam Smith is a fantastic vocalist, but this video has gone to far, I have an 11 year old granddaughter who likes Sam Smith and if she searched YouTube for him she would be subjected to this vulgarity, this should not be accessible to children."
However, others jumped to Smith's defense, stating that all the fuss is allegedly linked to internalized anti-queerness.
"Sex has always been a running theme in modern pop music, and music videos often flaunt it. But Sam Smith has made the criminal offence of being a) queer and b) not skinny, and in an increasingly anti-LGBTQ culture, that can’t be tolerated," wrote Guardian columnist, Owen Jones. "To be honest, the Sam Smith video is pretty f****** tame and if you’re shocked by it, you are deeply, deeply sad."
Another added: "People are just mad at a queer fat person being confident and sexy af bc it's everything they've been taught to feel repulsed by and from within the community??! when lady gaga does a sexually charged music video it's all "yess queen slay" (and rightly so) but not for Sam Smith bc apparently in 2023 people still think that fat people can't be sexy and hot."
A third wrote: "anyway, i hope sam smith is waking up today, sitting pretty on the massive piles of money they're taking from you streaming their music video."
Over the past few years, the 'Fire on Fire' singer has explained how they are now through with containing their true self for the approval of others, especially since coming out as nonbinary.
Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, they said: "We’ve got two sides, really: my personal life and then my public life. And in my personal life, there’s not one negative. My family can communicate with me; they always did, but they communicate with me now in an even better way. My love life has become better from it – I feel loveable, I feel comfortable my skin, I wear what I want to wear."
Smith acknowledged that the reaction hasn't always been positive as they explained to the host that it was an exhausting process.
"I think the only negatives and the struggle[s] have been in my public life, and my job. Just the amount of hate, and sh**ness [sic] that came my way, was just exhausting. And it was really hard."
They continued: "What people don’t realize, with trans-non-binary people in the UK, is it’s happening in the street. Like I’m being abused in the street, verbally, more than I ever have. So that was the hardest part, I think, was being at home in the UK and having people shouting at me in the street."
