Sam Smith’s latest single is “Too Good At Goodbyes,” but he’s also good at defending his friend, Ed Sheeran.
On Friday, Smith was being interviewed by Australian radio personality Kyle Sandilands when the talk show host asked him why he didn’t give away some of his songs to other artists.
Sandilands then contrasted Smith with Sheeran, whom he called a “song whore,” explaining that the “Shape of You” singer “whores all his songs out and teams up for all the group songs,” according to NME.com.
To be fair, Sheeran has written songs for Justin Bieber, One Direction and other artists, but writing music for other artists isn’t uncommon in the business.
Still, Sandilands tried to stretch the awkward metaphor further by saying that Smith, by comparison, was musically “monogamous,” as can be heard in the clip below.
Smith wasn’t having any of it.
“Ed is not a whore,” he insisted, before defending his fellow Brit.
“Ed Sheeran is an incredible songwriter, the way that he’s written these songs for other people is just absolutely incredible and I’m enamored by him. I think Ed’s success rate with his writing is just amazing and I love his stuff.”
Smith then explained why he hasn’t written for other artists.
“It just hasn’t felt right for my songs [to be shared], maybe just because my songs, like all the other [unused] ones, are just shit,” he said.
Smith’s defense of Sheeran returns a favor the “Thinking Out Loud” singer did back in December 2014, when Smith was dealing with online haters.
Starting to get hate tweets. I knew this would come. I’m too sensitive for this shit haha
