26 July 2023
By Theresa Braine, New York Daily News
Acclaimed Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor, known for hits such as “Nothing Compares 2 U” and for shredding a photo of the pope while hosting “Saturday Night Live,” has died.
She was 56.
A cause of death was not given. The singer had lost her son, Shane, to suicide in January 2022, after which she was briefly hospitalized.
Singer Sinead O’Connor attends the Giorgio Armani & Cinema Society screening of “Albert Nobbs” at the Museum of Modern Art on December 13, 2011 in New York City. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)
Back in 1990, her famed cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” was named the number one world single at the Billboard Music Awards. During a decades-long career, the Dublin-based singer released 10 studio albums.
Earlier this year she received a standing ovation at the RTÉ Choice Music Awards in receiving the first-ever award for Classic Irish Album, according to The Irish Times, which first reported her death.
Singer Sinead O’Connor performs at “Here But I’m Gone: A 70th Birthday Tribute to Curtis Mayfield” concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center on July 20, 2012 in New York City. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
She dedicated the award, for “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” to “each and every member of Ireland’s refugee community,” The Irish Times noted.
In October 1992 O’Connor notoriously tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a 1992 appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” calling it a protest against widespread allegations of child abuse in the Catholic Church — presaging the public revelations by about a decade.
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