She is good friends with the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, and in 2015 attended the opening of Nader's American Museum of Tort Law in Winsted, Connecticut. Smith's father was a factory worker who admired Nader, and that admiration was passed down; when Nader ran for president in 2000, Smith performed at a rally to support him.
Smith had a long and intimate relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, who became a renowned photographer famous for his provocative works. The two were lovers long before either was famous; when Mapplethorpe realized he was gay, they kept their bond in a platonic fashion. When Mapplethorpe was dying of AIDS in 1989, he asked Smith to tell their story. It took her 21 years, but she did, publishing their tale in the book Just Kids, released in 2010.
Her mother was very pragmatic, while her father was always searching for the meaning of life. Both were very nurturing to Smith and gave her the confidence she needed to succeed in her profession. She said in Esquire: "I had a very down-to-earth, compassionate mother and a head-in-the-clouds, searching father. It was like being raised by the earth and the sky."
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