"Unholy" is a dance banger that tells the story of an unfaithful husband. While his wife and children are at home, he's cheating on her with a sex worker.
Mummy don't know daddy's getting hot
At the body shop
Doing somethin' unholy
According to press materials, "the infamous LA Sunset Strip club The Body Shop," served as inspiration for the song.
Smith sings from the perspective of an acquaintance of the adulterous husband. The cheating man has confided in the pop star about his playing away from home. Smith chastises the "dirty boy" for betraying his wife and warns him that others know about his secret activities. "This song needs to be listened to by anyone and everyone, and especially people who are sick of being privy to other people's secrets," Smith told Apple Music.
German singer Kim Petras joins Smith on the track. She sings from the perspective of the sex worker whom the man rewards for her services with designer luxury goods.
The song is a new direction for Sam Smith, taking the singer away from their usual sad ballads. Instead, it's a mischievous cut that doesn't take the husband's secret infidelity too seriously. "'Unholy' was made in Jamaica and was one of the most glorious creative moments I've ever had as an artist," said Smith. "I've never had so much fun making a record. It was so cathartic and freeing to experiment like this and throw out the rule book."
Smith and Petras wrote the song after lots of rum with Smith's go-to writing partner Jimmy Napes along with Omer Fendi (Lil Nas X, The Kid Laroi), Blake Slatkin (Lizzo, 24K Golden), and producers ILYA (Max Martin, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez) and Cirkut (Nikki Minaj, The Weeknd),
Crafted around a sultry Arabic scale, the track combines a church-like choir, a string section, and heavy synths with club appeal. "It's a Middle Eastern scale," said Smith. "And Omer Fedi, who was writing the song with was playing it on the guitar, and then we came up with I started singing alongside the guitar and then ILYA, who was working on the beat, start working with B. And then there was this beautiful collaborative experience, which was kind of just what creating should be like. It was just free and fun, and we weren't thinking about no sounds radio. But the end result felt beautiful."
After Smith and and his team had written "Unholy" in Jamaica, he pictured Petras on it. He sent her the song, she loved it, and they met in LA's Capitol Records where she laid down her part.
Smith and Petras first teased the song on August 18, 2022 through a TikTok clip. We see Smith lip-syncing the chorus in a recording studio while Petras dances behind them. It went viral on the platform, creating anticipation for the song's release on September 22, 2022.
Simon Hale arranged the string section. The British composer received a Grammy nomination in 2015 for his contribution to Smith's
In the Lonely Hour album and also arranged and orchestrated his Bond theme "
Writing's On The Wall."
Assigned male at birth, according to Petra's parents Kim felt from the age of two she was a girl. Petras started taking hormone therapy at 12 and completed her gender transition four years later, becoming at the time the world's youngest person ever to undergo sex affirmation surgery. This duet between the transgender Petras and genderqueer Smith flips the script on the cheating anthem.
The Floria Sigismondi-directed video stars Sam Smith as the cabaret singer of "The Body Shop" sex club. RuPaul's Drag Race's Violet Chachki and Gottmik join them and the androgynous burlesque dancers before Petras arrives onstage. French dance collective (LA)HORDE choreographed the erotic clip, inspired by Moulin Rouge, A Clockwork Orange and Bob Fosse.
Days after the 10th anniversary of their collaboration "
Latch," Sam Smith dropped the
Disclosure remix of "Unholy". Since "Latch," Smith and Disclosure teamed up three more times: the 2013 Disclosure single "
Together," "
Omen" for Disclosure's 2015 album
Caracal, and Smith's
James Bond theme, "Writing's On The Wall."
When "Unholy" topped the Billboard Hot 100, Sam Smith and Kim Petras become the first openly non-binary and transgender artists, respectively, to reach #1 on the chart. Neither artist had reached the summit before: Smith previously peaked at #2 in 2014 with "
Stay With Me," and Petras had never charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Unholy" won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the Grammy Awards in 2023, making Kim Petras the first transgender woman to win a Grammy. Sam Smith let her give the acceptance speech, where she thanked those who helped her in her journey and believed in her. She mentioned Madonna as a key supporter of LGBT rights, and the transgender pioneer Sophie as an inspiration.
Later in the show, Madonna introduced Smith and Petras before they performed the song.
