Adam Lambert praises friend Sam Smith for inspiring non-binary people: ‘It takes a lot of guts’

Singer Adam Lambert has thanked fellow queer musician and “friend” Sam Smith for inspiring other LGBTQ+ people to live authentically.

Lambert made the comments while on the judging panel for ITV’s Starstruck, in which superfan singers transform into their musical idol, perform, and battle it out for a place in the final.

On Saturday night’s show (18 February), three Sam Smith impersonators took the stage, with one eventually being crowned the winner of the episode. Responding to the performance, Lambert gushed about Sam’s impact on LGBTQ+ people and pop music.

“I have the pleasure of knowing Sam, we’re friends,” Lambert said. 

“They are such a special character in pop music. Sam is part of a very small group of international mainstream artists coming out as non-binary, and it takes a lot of guts to say ‘this is who I am’.

“They’re part of a wave of people helping everybody else out there be exactly who they should be,” he added.

Sam Smith seems to have riled up the bigots a lot since the start of this year, with their raunchy performances at the Brits and the Grammys, and their unapologetic celebration of queerness in the music video for “I’m Not Here To Make Friends” creating a lot of eye-rolling discourse.

While courting controversy, Smith is also showing LGBTQ+ people that it’s OK to be exactly who they are.

Lambert himself isn’t a stranger to experiencing intense backlash, revealing earlier this year that he was almost threatened with a lawsuit for kissing a member of his band at the 2009 American Music Awards.

The “Fever” singer has also explained in a new interview with NME that, when he first arrived on the music scene in the late ‘00s, the media were bizarrely obsessed with the fact that he was a man who wore make-up.

“The guyliner [as] they coined it became this thing that had to be talked about and they didn’t understand. I was like ‘Wait a minute. [Male] musicians have been wearing makeup since the ’50s, so what the hell are you talking about,” he explained.

“I feel like pop culture sometimes has amnesia about what’s come before it.”

In the same interview, Lambert expressed his joy that queer artists like Sam Smith and Lil Nas X can now regularly top the charts.

“Looking at the music industry now, 10 years on, it’s totally different. Now you can be queer and successful, it’s no longer a question mark; it’s no longer niche,” he said.

“Lil Nas X is mainstream and successful; Sam Smith is mainstream and successful.”