At Sam Smith’s country home in Buckinghamshire, England, there’s a little barnhouse tucked to the side of the sprawling property. A small faux menagerie — turtles, flamingos, even a sloth named Keith — overlooks a patio where Smith’s year-old Bernadoodle, Velma (named for the merry murderess in Chicago), suns herself. Inside, there’s a billiards table, a sparkling crystal chandelier and a full bar; feathered, palm tree-shaped lamps and a 2-foot-tall, stuffed Ewok round out the cozily jumbled decor. It might be the perfect facsimile of the pub in town — well, except for the neon sign hanging in the rafters that reads “Fist Me.”
“I was like, ‘What do we call the pub?’ — I know it’s not really a pub, it’s a little barn,” Smith says, taking in the scene. “My sister actually wanted to call it The Tadpole, which I think is a fabulous name for a bar. But I just think The Fat Fairy beat that.”
A custom-designed spill mat on the bar bears that name, and Smith excitedly rattles off a to-do list for further furnishing: getting a working beer tap, installing wood flooring matching the rustic walls, as a “proper pub” would. After working in London through the week, this is where Smith spends weekends — so it’s nice to have, as they put it, “my own, private queer club in the middle of the countryside.”
Steps away from The Fat Fairy, there’s a building dedicated to a different sort of celebration: a shed-turned-studio space, where Smith has spent the last two years making new music that, as they put it, finally reflects their truest self. Sitting on a turquoise couch inside of it, sporting a Balenciaga T-shirt with two gender-neutral stick figures holding hands, Smith — who came out publicly as nonbinary in late 2019 — radiates a newfound sense of comfort: no more hiding, no more questioning, just living life on their terms. “I can’t express how incredible I feel every day,” they say with a wide grin.
Read the full Sam Smith cover story here.