2023 UPDATE: Sinéad O’Connor has died at the age of 56.
The artist, who courted controversy throughout her long career, rose to fame with her 1990 rendition of the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which peaked at No. 1 on the
Billboard Hot 100 that same year.
Her death comes one year after her 17-year-old son, Shane O’Connor, died of an apparent suicide. She announced his passing in January 2022.
In her lengthy career she released 10 studio albums, kicking it off with her 1987 alternative rock debut, “The Lion and the Cobra."
In 1991 she said she’d boycott the Grammy awards, claiming the Recording Academy awarded artists based on commercial success.
In October 1992, she infamously tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II and said, "Fight the real enemy," while performing as a musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.” She explained the move was in protest of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
The move was met with an onslaught of high-profile criticism, with actor Joe Pesci
in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue, and
Madonna mocking her...by ripping up a photo of Long Island sex offender Joey Buttafuoco...
Frank Sinatra went as far as to call her “one stupid broad." The move was also criticized by the Anti-Defamation League.
“I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” O’Connor said to The
New York Times in 2021. “But it was very traumatizing.”
Despite declaring that she was not a mainstream pop star, she was nominated for several Grammys and won best alternative music performance for
“I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” in 1991.
In 2018, O'Connor
converted to Islam and changed her name to “Shuhada.” “This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim,” she wrote on Twitter on October 2018. “This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant.”
“Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” the singer’s family said in a statement to
The Irish Times and the
BBC.
A cause of death was not given.