Video has emerged online of singer Sam Smith being heckled in New York’s Central Park by a stranger shouting vile anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
In the 27-second clip, which was posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Smith can be seen at a distance standing alone near what appears to be the Central Park Zoo.
“You belong in hell!” a woman just to the right of the person taking the video shouts, in what sounds like an Irish accent. “Sam Smith belongs in hell! You demonic twisted sick bastard!”
“Leave the kids alone, you sick f**ker!” the woman continues to shout as Smith walks away. She then shouts baseless accusations of pedophilia as someone else shouts “groomer.”
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“You’re evil!” the first woman, who can be briefly seen at the end of the clip, shouts as someone nearby shouts the word “Illuminati.”
The disturbing encounter comes on the heels of two high-profile performances from Smith and Kim Petras at The Grammys and the Brit Awards in recent weeks. On February 5, the pair performed their hit single “Unholy” at The Grammys, which aired on CBS. The song went on to win the award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance making them the first non-binary and transgender artists to win that particular Grammy.
But their performance, which saw the duo and their backup dancers bathed in red light and Smith wearing a top hat featuring devil horns, drew backlash from conservative viewers. The FCC reportedly receive 18 complaints about the performance. Viewers described the performance as “satanic” and “anti-Christian,” according to The Daily Mail.
Smith and Petras performed the song again at the Brit Awards on February 11. According to the Los Angeles Times, the majority of the 106 complaints received by the U.K.’s Office of Communications about the show, which aired on ITV1, were about their performance.
Late last month, Smith opened up about the abuse they’ve received from strangers on the street in the U.K. since coming out as non-binary in 2019.
“What people don’t realize with trans non-binary people in the U.K. is it’s happening in the street. I’m being abused in the street verbally, more than I ever have,” Smith said. “Someone spat at me in the street, it was crazy.”
“It’s been crazy to, like, be in New York and L.A., because I feel like I can dress and be myself more in these cities than I can at home,” they continued. “That’s a wild feeling because America’s a complex place.”
