- Born in London in 1992.
- He was active in musical theater and jazz bands as a teenager.
- He developed a soulful R&B/pop sound, which is evident in his breakthrough single, as the featured vocalist for Latch by Disclosure in 2012.
- Smith released his first studio album, In the Lonely Hour, in 2014. It was certified 5x platinum in the U.S., peaking at #2 on the Billboard 200 album chart. There were five singles from this album, with 2 reaching mega-hit status – Stay With Me and I’m Not The Only One. The album won the Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Album, and Stay With Me won Grammy awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. He also won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 2015.
- As he received his award, he thanked his former boyfriend, saying “I want to thank the man who this record is about, who I fell in love with last year. Thank you so much for breaking my heart because you got me four Grammys!”.
- In 2016, Smith won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song Writing’s on the Wall, from the James Bond film Spectre.
- In 2017, Smith released The Thrill of It All. It topped the album chart and was certified 2x platinum. It included his hit single Too Good at Goodbyes, which peaked at #4 on the Hot 100 chart and was a top ten hit in 30 countries.
- His third studio album, Love Goes, was released in 2020. It reached #5 on the album chart and was certified platinum. The single Dancing With a Stranger (with Normani as a co-writer and collaborator) peaked at #7.
- The Gloria album was released in 2023. It included the song Unholy, which Smith performed together with Kim Petras. It was a Grammy award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. It also was Smith’s first single to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
- Smith writes or co-writes his own music. Stay With Me has an interesting collaboration – Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne are noted as co-writers, after a settlement between Smith and Petty/Lynne due to similarities between the song and Petty’s I Won’t Back Down. Petty and Lynne also receive 12.5% of the royalties from Smith’s song – that promises to be a major payout! Here’s the video of Stay With Me – you can decide how similar it might be to Petty’s famous song.