The Irish Times reports that singer Sinéad O’Connor has died at age 56.
O’Connor grabbed the attention of American audiences when her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” became a No. 1 smash. The video, a long close-up of O’Connor, with a shaved head, became one of MTV’s iconic images in the early 1990s. Not long afterward, she purposely destroyed her image in an infamous SNL appearance. Adapting Bob Marley’s song “War” to a protest against child abuse, she held up a picture of Pope John Paul II and tore it, saying, “Fight the real enemy.”
“I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career,” she wrote in a recent memoir, “and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
She lived a wild life thereafter, producing albums of adventurous world music. She did some time as an ordained “priestess” in a breakaway Catholic sect devoted to the Latin Mass. After a few months she gave it up, citing the demands of celibacy. “I tried,” she said, “No, thanks.”
She is survived by three children. Her son Shane died last year by suicide. He was 17.
While she made herself the center of controversy throughout her adult life, what no one disputed was her talent. Whether at singing rebel songs, reggae-influenced pop, or anything else, really, she was singularly gifted.