Sam Smith was arguably the music industry's biggest breakout star of 2014, which is proven by the fact that the British singer has received six nominations for this year's Grammy Awards, but his journey to success wasn't as easy as people may assume.

Sam Smith
Smith came out to the world just as his career was taking off last year

Apart from being a very talented performer, Smith was also in the spotlight last year for coming out as a gay man just as his career was beginning to blossom, but when the 22-year-old star recently spoke with Rolling Stone, he revealed that he first referred to himself as a homosexual at 13-years-old.

While attending school, Smith remembered a classmate asking him point-blank if he was gay. "I turned 'round and I was just like, 'Yeah,'" he told the mag. "And everything's changed."

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The BRIT Award winner continued to open up about his childhood, which he said was happy "80 percent of the time," but Smith did recall a difficult time in his teenage years when he was bullied in front of his father.

"I was just embarrassed that my dad had to see that, because I could only imagine how you feel as a parent," he said. "You just want to kill them. I was always embarrassed for the people around me. It never actually deeply affected me. You just ignore it, you know?"

But there were also much happier times, like the compassion his first crush showed when Smith admitted his feelings for this student in a love letter. Although the boy was straight, he still wrote a heartfelt note back.

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"It makes me emotional, actually," Smith told Rolling Stone about this person not sharing the same feelings. "He looked out for me for the rest of school. He just made sure that if anyone took the piss out of me, he would stick up for me. He could have made it hell for me."