‘I’m not buying it’: Kyle Sandilands rants about having to call non-binary Sam Smith ‘they’ and ‘them’ – and says he now identifies as a black woman in protest
Radio presenter Kyle Sandilands had a boomer moment on Tuesday when he struggled to get his head around the concept of Sam Smith being non-binary.
Sam prefers the gender neutral pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘theirs’, which Kyle found confusing because these words typically refer to groups of people, not individuals.
Fellow KIIS FM host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson and newsreader Brooklyn Ross then tried to explain how ‘they’ can be singular when referring to a non-binary person.
They?! Radio presenter Kyle Sandilands had a boomer moment on Tuesday when he struggled to get his head around the concept of Sam Smith being non-binary
‘I’m sick of this. Why do I have to do this?’ asked Kyle, to which Jackie replied: ‘That’s the way it is these days, hun.’
The shock jock then said he identified as a ’48-year-old black woman’ and expected to be treated as such.
He added: ‘I’ll be now allowed to the N-word, because I identify as a black woman. Is that right? Is that how it works?’
Hard to understand? Sam prefers the gender neutral pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘theirs’, which Kyle found confusing because these words typically refer to groups of people, not individuals
Brooklyn, who is openly gay, suggested ‘you can just say his name’. Jackie promptly corrected him: ‘Their name, Brooklyn.’
Kyle, who was scheduled to interview Sam later that morning, became exasperated and said he could not understand the pronouns.
‘I’m not buying into the “their”. I can’t. It’s too much. “Their an absolutely sweetie,” like there’s two of them,’ he said.
Jackie said that she remembers how to address Sam correctly by following a simple rule.
‘When you’re talking to him [sic], imagine you’re talking to The Veronicas. That’s how I do it,’ she said, referring to the Australian pop duo.
‘That’s the way it is these days'” Fellow KIIS FM host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson (pictured) tried to explain how ‘they’ can be singular when referring to a non-binary person
Sam, 27, came out as non-binary last year. They had previously identified as a man, but now identifies neither exclusively as a man nor a woman.
The Stay With Me singer has asked fans and loved ones to use the pronouns ‘they/them’, not ‘he/him’.
‘Non-binary / genderqueer is that you do not identify in a gender,’ Sam told actress and activist Jameela Jamil in March.
‘You are a mixture of all different things. You are your own special creation. That’s how I take it – I am not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between – it’s all on the spectrum.’
Coming out: The 27-year-old, who is known for their hits Stay With Me and Dancing with a Stranger, came out as non-binary last year. Pictured in September 2019