Sinead O’Connor, the Irish Singer who rose to fame with “Nothing Compares To You”, dies today at 56. The acclaimed artist was known for courting controversy, including boycotting the Grammys and ripping up a photo of the Pope on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”.
Although a cause of death has not been given as of yet, her death comes a year after her son’s (17) passing of an apparent suicide. O’Connor has been diagnosed with BiPolar Disorder and has struggled for many years with mental health and addiction issues.
O’Connor was born in Dublin and became known for her activism as much as for her music. In response to ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul in October 1992, she said, “I’m not sorry I did it”. “It was brilliant, but it was very traumatizing”.
She detailed her struggles with mental health in her 2021 memoir “Remembering”.
In 2018, O’Connor converted to Islam and became a Muslim. “I am proud to have become a Muslim”, she wrote on Twitter in 2018. “It is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey”.
On her first album, her face was very beautiful, her head was shaved bald, and her wrists were defensively locked across her heart. “I grew up in a severely abusive situation, my mother being the perpetrator”. It’s wonderfully healing to make sounds. So much of child abuse is about being voiceless”.
In her writings on Facebook and Twitter, she brought up suicide many times and she tried it more than once in the past. After her death, the Prime Minister of Ireland issued a statement of condolence.
