Sinead O’Connor, the singer of Nothing Compares 2 U, passed suddenly on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Irish singer Sinead O’Connor had gone away at the age of 56. The singer passed suddenly in January 2022, a year after Shane, her son, was discovered dead in Ireland. “We announce the demise of our beloved Sinéad with deep sorrow. Her family and friends expressed their devastation and desire for privacy at this extremely trying time in a statement to the Irish news network RTE.
The three surviving offspring of the legendary vocalist are Jake, Brigidine, and Yeshua. No information regarding Sinead’s cause of death has been released.
With the publication of her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and its lead hit Mandinka, the singer gained enormous popularity in the United States and across the pond. More singles were released, including her most well-known, eerie rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which peaked at number one in the 1990s global singles chart. From her critically praised album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which was placed number 457 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, “Nothing” had the highest ranking song position. When the austere “Nothing” video, which was recorded outside of Paris at the Palace of Versailles and features Sinead in a striking, weeping closeup, topped Madonna’s “Vogue” to win the top Video of the Year award at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards, Sinead pulled off an astonishing upset.
In her lifetime, Sinead published 10 studio albums, and one extended play (EP), and at the time of her passing, she was working on an 11th album, No Veteran Dies Alone.
The artist gained media attention for reasons other than her singing career because of her outspokenness on important social problems. She made a statement that became infamous when she claimed she wouldn’t do live shows if the US national anthem was performed before them and she later withdrew from a Grammy Awards ceremony despite receiving four nominations.
She also made a legendary appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992, tearing up a picture of the then-Pope John Paul II in protest against child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The singer stood by her activities, writing in her 2021 memoir Rememberings: “Everyone wants a pop star, see? Producers at the time had no idea that she was plotting the trick. But I sing in protest. Just some things I needed to get off my chest. I didn’t want to be famous.
A signature feature of Sinead was her completely shaved head, which she claimed was a protest against conventional ideas of what a woman should look like. Her immediate reaction was one of protest, but as she looked deeply into her eyes, she said, “I don’t feel like me unless I get my hair shaved. So I’ll still shave it when I’m an old lady.
The singer underwent a spiritual transformation after becoming a priest in the 1990s, despite the Church’s position at the time that ordinations of women were invalid. Before converting to Islam in 2018, Sinead was a Christian for a number of years, despite asking various Popes to excommunicate her from the Church. Shuhada’ Sadaqat became her new name, and she started donning a headscarf.
The singer struggled with mental health concerns for a significant portion of her life. In 2007, she revealed on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a diagnosis that had previously been disregarded by numerous medical professionals. She stated on Facebook in 2017 that she had been considering suicide as a result of losing custody of Shane, the son she had with musician Donal Lunny.
Following Shane’s passing in 2022, she also published a number of posts that caused her to be admitted to the hospital. To break down some of the stigmas associated with mental health, Sinead, who always made sure to push the boundaries of mental illness, appeared on Dr. Phil in 2017.
