Sam Smith Defends His 'Whitesplaining' of Racist Attack

Sam Smith is defending recent posts on Twitter that recounted his being a witness to racism.

The "Stay With Me" singer tweeted Tuesday that he was "absolutely speechless and hurt" after witnessing a friend "getting verbally abused racially in London."

The gay Grammy winner went on to communicate that he was "so upset" by the experience, and "I never ever ever thought that would happen here."

Not everyone was sympathetic to Smith, who recently won a Golden Globe in the category of Best Original Song for Spectre's "Writing's on the Wall."

Smith, 23, was criticized for "whitesplaining" the hurt caused by racism and for making the experience about his own feelings, rather than those of the friend who was the target of the attack.

In response, he posted a message to Instagram that explained his reasoning for recounting the event. The caption stated, "Please read."

"For the record, I was merely sharing an experience I had in the hope it would draw attention to ridiculous it is to be racist in 2016," he wrote on the image.

"This is not about me in any way, it's about a deep rooted issue we have in our society that should now be extinct," he continued, before drawing an intersectional connection between race and sexual orientation.

"I don't profess to know or remotely understand what it means to be on the receiving end of racial abuse, but having been bullied my whole life for being gay, what I do know is that it is wrong and completely unacceptable."

"Here's to people being allowed to be people," he concluded.

It is unclear what exactly Smith witnessed in the incident, which he said involved racial slurs and "unhelpful" police.

A possible witness, who posted on Twitter just minutes before Smith, said he had heard the singer himself yelling a racist and misogynist slur outside Freedom Bar in the SoHo district of London. The tweet was picked up by a few media outlets, but it could not be confirmed, and it generated initial confusion as to what transpired.

See the singer's chronology of social media posts below.

A photo posted by Sam Smith (@samsmithworld) on Jan 20, 2016 at 1:38pm PST