Sam Smith was forced to have an operation on his eye after contracting a painful stye.

The 26-year-old singer first told fans about the stye, an infection that causes a tender red bump to appear on the eyelid, four days ago, and has been keeping his followers updated about his condition on social media.

On Monday (14Jan19), Sam revealed he had had surgery on his right eye, and would be wearing a patch for the forseeable future.

The procedure didn't dampen the Grammy Award-winning singer's sense of humour, however, as he shared a picture of himself wearing the patch on his Instagram page and referenced his song Stay With Me as he wrote: "Stye with me".

Fans quickly flooded his page offering their well wishes, with one commenting that his new look could lead to a duet with much-loved British singer Gabrielle, who was famous for wearing a patch to cover up an eye condition.

"Rocking the @gabrielleuk look, Actually you guys should duet, With matching eye patches in the video," the fan wrote.

Sam had earlier documented the build up to the operation on his Instagram Stories, telling followers: "So. I'm getting it operated on in 20 minutes. I'm f**king scared and also super hyped that I get to wear this pirate patch."

The message was accompanied by a selfie which showed an extremely swollen eye.

He then added: "I'm being super dramatic. It's like a 15 minute Operation lol (laugh out loud)."

The next shot saw Sam laying in a hospital bed wearing a medical cap, pouting for the camera.

The multi-talented star started complaining about his eye last week, and told fans on Sunday that he was eating ice cream and feeling sorry for himself because it was so painful.

"Been feeling sorry for myself all day because my f**king eye is in agony and getting worse and worse," he wrote.