Kim Petras has arrived in pop Olympus with the song “Unholy” alongside Sam Smith. Now she's the first trans woman to win a Grammy.
Kim Petras and Sam Smith won the 65th Grammy Awards for Best Pop Duo
“Mummy don't know daddy's getting hot at the body shop,” ( Mommy doesn't know Daddy's heating up at the strip club) a polyphonic choir sings, “doing something unholy” (where he does nefarious things). Then the rhythm begins and a plaintive voice turns to the father: “She'd kick you out if she ever, ever knew”.
Sam Smith and Kim Petras landed a mega hit with “Unholy”
In the song, disaster takes its course. “Unholy”, the song by Kim Petras and Sam Smith, tells of the secret longings of a married father. He becomes a “dirty, dirty boy”, as the text says, a dirty boy who visits an erotic club – with clear intentions. His betrayal of the ideal of middle-class marriage is the stuff Petras and Smith used to create their hit.
Kim Petras and Sam Smith were honored for the song in the category Best Pop Duo at the 65th Grammy Gala. This makes the 30-year-old German the first trans person in the history of the Grammys to be honored in this category. “I just want to thank all of the incredible transgender legends ahead of me who opened these doors for me to be here tonight,” Petras said at the awards ceremony. “I grew up on a Autobahn in the middle of nowhere in Germany. And my mother believed me that I was a girl. Without her I wouldn't be here.”
LGBTQ community celebrates Kim Petras
The song has already gone viral in the past. Chart success is nothing new for Smith: Since 2014, Smith has topped the UK charts eight times and the single “Stay With Me” has reached number two in the US. In 2017, Smith announced that he was non-binary.
The Cologne-born singer and songwriter Kim Petras, on the other hand, was still considered an insider tip, although she had already written songs for the US rapper Fergie and R&B singer Rihanna. That has now changed: Some people compare them already with Lady Gaga, the US newspaper “New York Times” gave her the title “Princess of Gloss”.
Part of that success is the story of their self-empowerment. Kim Petras began searching for her gender identity at an early age for all the world to see. She was born in Cologne in 1992 in the body of a boy and grew up in the nearby town of Hennef. At the age of two she tries on girls' clothes, wears skirts and plays with dolls. “I've always felt like a girl. I hated my body when I was five,” she tells the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”. “I couldn't identify with the gender, I wanted it gone.” She runs through her room with a pair of scissors, wanting to “cut that thing off”.
The child is suffering more and more. “I was fortunate to have parents who really understood me.” But those around her show much less understanding: “There were weird doctors in St. Augustin and Hennef who said to me: You're crazy,” Kim recalls.
Mobbing in the playground
< p>She is also rejected at school and is bullied in the playground. At the age of ten she begins to seek psychological help. When she is twelve, she changes her first name to Kim. After that she sometimes comes to school in latex clothes. “I wanted to at least be well dressed if someone throws their school lunch at me.”
Kim Petras has long been a star in the LGBTQ community
The parents had two independent reports drawn up. Both confirm their child is transgender. When Kim hits puberty, she panics. “That's when we recognized their need, their fears of growing a beard and their voice breaking,” reported Father Lutz on television in 2007. Petras became known in Germany at the age of 13 when she appeared with her parents on the magazine “Stern TV” and talked about her hormone treatment.
Berlin Backstage: Kim Petras
As a 16-year-old, she made the report “Man or Woman?” on the private broadcaster VOX publicly that she underwent gender reassignment surgery. This makes her the youngest trans person in the world to have her body altered. Her case made headlines around the world.
A Hamburg hormone center had treated her. Injections initially stopped male puberty, hormones stimulated the female change in the body. Although trans people are biologically clearly female or male, they perceive themselves as members of the opposite sex. Trans people often want to adapt their bodies to their perceived gender.
“Wants to be known as a good artist”
Kim found support in pop music. At the age of 15 she began to publish her own pop songs on the internet. Later she works as a songwriter in the USA. Since 2017, Kim Petras has increasingly appeared as a singer. In the meantime she has released two studio albums of her own and collaborated with musicians such as Dr. Luke, Charli XCX, Kygo and Paris Hilton worked together. The huge success with “Unholy” comes as a surprise to Kim. At the same time, a long-cherished dream comes true for her. As a child, Petras now said she would have liked to see a trans person rock the US charts, but didn't think it was possible.
Kim Petras and Sam Smith at a festival in Las Vegas in September 2022
Does it play into her songs that she is transgender? “No,” she says in the Zeit interview, “it's more about human things – love, grief, how I imagine my life.” But she will always be part of the LGBTQ community and stand up for them. “Of course that makes me special,” she says. “But I want to be known for being a good artist.” One thing is certain: their success is encouraging for the LGBTQ community.
This is the updated version of an article from November 8th, 2022.