Everyone will remember her for her great success, Nothing Compares 2U, the Prince song that she made her own and made her go around the world, putting it on everyone’s lips. Who was that girl who sang the song looking at the camera in a fixed shot and with a shaved head? The society of 1990 was not very used to women who spoke clearly and openly.
The family of Sinéad O’Connor issued a statement yesterday announcing her death, without clarifying the causes: “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends of hers are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
Born in Dublin in 1966, Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor was raised in strict Irish Catholicism and was marked from a young age by the bad relationship between her parents. After her divorce, at the age of eight she went to live with her mother, who mistreated her, as she herself recounted in her memoirs. After a period living with her father, she entered a boarding school, where she discovered her passion for music, which would never leave her.
After passing through several bands, she released her first album, The lion and the cobra, in 1987, with remarkable success, but nothing compared to the one she obtained when in 1989 she released the single that launched her into the world: Nothing compares 2U. Her video clip marked an era, and she went from being a semi-unknown singer to a world figure, which gave her a loudspeaker that she used without hesitation. With the album on which it was included the following year, I do not want what I haven’t got, he launched a brilliant career that added his music to the open claims, which challenged the vision of femininity and challenged society with its opinions about religion, sex, feminism or war.
His image breaking into pieces in 1992 a photo of Pope John Paul II live on Saturday Night Live to denounce cases of pedophilia in the Church went around the world and increased the controversy around him, and, at the same time that the made him a star, it also closed numerous industry doors for him.
However, her problems with the hierarchy never meant a renunciation of the faith, even if it was heterodox, and in fact she was ordained a priestess by a dissident Catholic group. Her spirituality came to light on her records, such as Theology, from 2007, which she presented the following year at a memorable evening at the Palau de la Música. Her interest in religion led her to convert to Islam in 2018, when she adopted the name Shuhada Sadaqat.
The light of success also revealed an explosive and addictive personality, partly due to the abuse she received as a child. She herself recounted it in her memoirs, Remembrances (Books of the Kultrum), published two years ago: “I grew up with many traumas and abuses. Then I went straight into the music industry and never really learned how to lead a normal life.” Ballasted by bipolar syndrome diagnosed a couple of decades ago and by the use and abuse of drugs, the singer entered a rehabilitation center in 2020, which made her cancel the tour planned for the publication of what would be her eleventh album, Veteran. dies alone, which has not yet come to light. She had announced that it would be the last, since she felt too old to go on stage.
The news of his passing comes 18 months after the suicide of his 17-year-old son Shane. Shortly after her death, she was hospitalized after tweeting: “I have decided to follow my son.” She had already attempted suicide on at least two occasions.
