Sam Smith regrets not replying to Tom Petty’s letter over ‘Stay With Me’ credit: “I was just a little sassy 22-year-old queer kid”

Sam Smith has revealed their regret at not responding to a letter Tom Petty sent them during the songwriting-credit dispute surrounding ‘Stay With Me’.

READ MORE: Sam Smith – ‘Gloria’ review: the most vital work of their career The singer reflected on the controversy during a recent appearance on Alchemy With Anthony Mason , maintaining that they had never heard Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’ before writing their 2014 breakthrough single.

Petty and Jeff Lynne were added as co-writers of ‘Stay With Me’ in 2015 after the publishers of the 1989 track contacted Smith’s team about similarities between the songs’ choruses.

Smith’s representatives described the resemblance as a “ complete coincidence ” at the time, with the parties ultimately reaching an amicable agreement.

“You’ve got to understand, ‘Stay With Me’ was written in a basement in London and I’d never ever heard ‘I Won’t Back Down’,” Smith said in the new interview.

“Regretfully, actually.

I, as a young kid, just didn’t listen to men, if I’m honest.

The only male singers I ever listened to were Stevie Wonder and George Michael .

I was a kid that just loved the divas.

And girl pop.

So I’d never heard it.” Smith went on to reveal that Petty wrote to them shortly before the 2015 Grammy Awards , where they won four prizes, including Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year for ‘Stay With Me’.

“He wrote me a letter the night before the Grammys and it arrived to my room,” they recalled.

“I was so pissed off when I read it.” They recalled Petty writing that there were “only so many notes on the piano”, which initially left them frustrated.

“I was like, ‘You get it, so why is this happening?’” Smith explained.