By Sylvia Hui
London: Sinead O’Connor, the gifted Irish singer-songwriter who became a superstar in her mid-20s but was known as much for her private struggles and provocative actions as for her fierce and expressive music, has died at 56.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinead. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” the singer’s family said in a statement reported on Wednesday, local time, by the BBC and RTE.
Sinead O’Connor, ahead of closing the Melbourne Festival in 2010 with her Seven Songs to Leave Behind.Credit: Rodger Cummins
Recognisable by her shaved head and elfin features, O’Connor began her career singing on the streets of Dublin and soon rose to international fame.
She was a star from her 1987 debut album The Lion and the Cobra and became a sensation in 1990 with her cover of Prince’s ballad Nothing Compares 2 U, a seething, shattering performance that topped charts from Europe to Australia and was heightened by a promotional video featuring the grey-eyed O’Connor in intense close-up.
Nothing Compares 2 U received three Grammy nominations and was the featured track off her acclaimed album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which helped lead Rolling Stone to name her Artist of the Year in 1991.
“She proved that a recording artist could refuse to compromise and still connect with millions of listeners hungry for music of substance,” the magazine declared.
She was a lifelong non-conformist – she would say that she shaved her head in response to record executives pressuring her to be conventionally glamorous – but her political and cultural stances and troubled private life often overshadowed her music.
She feuded with Frank Sinatra over her refusal to allow the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner at one of her shows and accused Prince of physically threatening her. In 1989 she declared her support for the Irish Republican Army, a statement she retracted a year later. Around the same time, she skipped the Grammy ceremony, saying it was too commercialised.
A critic of the Catholic Church well before allegations of sexual abuse were widely reported, O’Connor made headlines in October 1992 when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II while appearing live on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and denounced the church as the enemy.
The following week, Joe Pesci hosted Saturday Night Live, held up a repaired photo of the Pope and said that if he had been on the show with O’Connor he “would have gave her such a smack”.
O’Connor tore up a picture of the Pope during her performance on Saturday Night Live in 1992.
Days later, she appeared at an all-star tribute for Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden and was immediately booed.
She was supposed to sing Dylan’s I Believe in You, but switched to an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s War, which she had sung on Saturday Night Live.
Although consoled and encouraged on stage by her friend Kris Kristofferson, she left and broke down, and her performance was kept off the concert CD. (Years later, Kristofferson recorded Sister Sinead, for which he wrote “And maybe she’s crazy and maybe she ain’t/But so was Picasso and so were the saints.”)
Kris Kristofferson comforts O’Connor during the Bob Dylan anniversary concert at New York Madison Square Garden, on Oct. 17, 1992. Credit: AP
In 1999, O’Connor caused uproar in Ireland when she became a priestess of the breakaway Latin Tridentine Church – a position that was not recognised by the mainstream Catholic Church.
For many years, she called for a full investigation into the extent of the church’s role in concealing child abuse by clergy.
Sinead O Connor in Sydney’s Swiss Hotel in 2007.Credit: Lisa Wiltse
In 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI apologised to Ireland to atone for decades of abuse, O’Connor condemned the apology for not going far enough and called for Catholics to boycott Mass until there was a full investigation into the Vatican’s role, which by 2018 was making international headlines.
O’Connor performs at the East Coast Blues & Roots Festival in Byron Bay, 2008.Credit: Kristian Dowling/Getty Images
“People assumed I didn’t believe in God. That’s not the case at all. I’m Catholic by birth and culture and would be the first at the church door if the Vatican offered sincere reconciliation,” she wrote in The Washington Post in 2010.
O’Connor announced in 2018 that she had converted to Islam and would be adopting the name Shuhada Sadaqat – although she continued to use Sinead O’Connor professionally.
She was public about her mental illness, saying that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
When her teenage son Shane died by suicide last year, O’Connor tweeted there was “no point living without him” and she was soon hospitalised.
On July 12, she posted on her official Facebook account that she had recently moved back to London, was finishing an album, and intended to tour Australia and New Zealand towards the end of 2024 and early 2025.
After O’Connor’s death was announced, the Irish national radio broadcaster’s regular evening music show exclusively played her songs and read out tributes from listeners.
“To those of us who had the privilege of knowing her, one couldn’t but always be struck by the depth of her fearless commitment to the important issues which she brought to public attention, no matter how uncomfortable those truths may have been,” Irish President Michael D. Higgins said in a statement.
“What Ireland has lost at such a relatively young age is one of our greatest and most gifted composers, songwriters and performers of recent decades.”
Support is available from Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 and Lifeline on 13 11 14.
AP, Reuters
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