The singer of Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O’Connor, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday.
Sinead O’Connor, an Irish singer, passed suddenly on Wednesday at the age of 56, it was announced. One year after Shane, her son, was found dead in Ireland, the singer passed away unexpectedly in January 2022. “We very regret to inform you of the passing of our darling Sinéad. In a message to the Irish television network RTE, her family and friends expressed their sadness and need for privacy during this incredibly challenging time.
Jake, Brigidine, and Yeshua are the singer’s three surviving children. There is no information available about Sinead’s cause of death.
The singer became incredibly well-known in the US and abroad after the release of her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and its lead single Mandinka. More tracks were made available, including her most well-known and creepy cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which peaked at number one on the international singles list in the 1990s. “Nothing” was the top-ranked song on her critically acclaimed album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which was ranked 457 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Sinead pulled off an incredible upset when the somber “Nothing” video, which was shot outside of Paris at the Palace of Versailles and featured Sinead in a stunning, sobbing closeup, defeated Madonna’s “Vogue” to win the top Video of the Year title at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
Sinead released 10 studio albums, one extended play (EP), and was currently working on an 11th album, No Veteran Dies Alone, when she passed away.
The artist’s outspokenness on significant social issues helped her garner media attention for causes other than her singing profession. When she said she wouldn’t do live gigs if the US national anthem was played before them, she said something that went viral. She later withdrew from a Grammy Awards presentation despite having four nominations.
In 1992, she also had a famous performance on Saturday Night Live, where she tore up a portrait of the then-Pope John Paul II in opposition to child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. In her biography Rememberings from 2021, the singer defended her actions, saying: “Everyone wants a pop star, see? She was planning the trick at the time, but the producers were unaware. But in opposition, I sing. I just needed to vent about a few things. I wasn’t interested in fame.
Sinead was known for having her head fully shaved, which she claimed was a protest against social norms on how women should look. She initially objected, but after giving it some serious thought, she replied, “I don’t feel like me unless I get my hair shaved. So even when I’m old and gray, I’ll still shave.
Despite the Church’s view at the time, which held that women’s ordinations were invalid, the singer had a spiritual transformation after becoming a priest in the 1990s. Sinead was a Christian for a while prior to turning to Islam in 2018 despite requesting excommunication from the Church from several popes. She changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat and began sporting a hijab.
The singer spent a large amount of her life dealing with mental health issues. She announced that she had been given a bipolar disorder diagnosis in 2007, which had previously been dismissed by several medical authorities, on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2017, she admitted on Facebook that she had been thinking about killing herself since she was going to lose custody of Shane, the kid she had with singer Donal Lunny.
She also wrote a number of posts after Shane passed away in 2022, which led to her being admitted to the hospital. In 2017, Sinead, who constantly pushed the limits of mental illness, made an appearance on Dr. Phil to help dispel some of the stigmas related to mental health.
