Regardless, O’Connor has continued to record music and speak candidly about everything from pop culture to mental health.
In 2007, O’Connor revealed to Oprah that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Of the four-year gap, she adds, “I lost my marbles.
“I couldn’t understand why people liked my songs; I was a protest singer,” says Sinead O’Connor, seen here in 1988.Paul Bergen/Redferns
I had to go and find them.”
Is that a source of frustration or regret?
SINEAD O’CONNOR:It’s a source of great pleasure.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
I think there’s a very good reason that I can’t remember.
I joke in the intro that I’ve forgotten because of all the weed I’ve smoked.
It’s not the weed.
“Artists who have mental health conditions shouldn’t be forced to tour in ways that prevent them from sticking to their medical regimen,” says O’Connor.Andrew Chin/Getty Images
The 10 years after thatSaturday Night Liveperformance, the way that I was dealt with was shocking.
Everybody treated me like I was a crazy bitch cos I ripped up the Pope’s picture.
We know I’m a crazy bitch, but that’s not why.
It’s astounding that one performance defined your reality for so long.
Yeah, and that’s why I don’t remember; it was a horribly painful time.
I don’t regret it in the f—ing slightest.
I’d do the exact same over again.
But it had a huge effect on me in Ireland.
It meant you weren’t safe going on a date.
A person only wants to know you because you’re Sinead O’F—ing Connor.
People wanna hang out with you because you’re famous.
Your best friends are stealing off you.
Did it feel like you were two different entities?
In a way, yeah.
I had to stop reading things good or bad.
None of it was me.
I was very young.
There were f—ing brilliant things about fame but it’s a massive identity crisis.
I could no longer just be an ordinary girl.
I had imposter syndrome.
I couldn’t understand why people liked my songs.
I was a protest singer.
It was never meant to happen that I would become a pop star.
It was a freak accident.
I didn’t want to do the things that pop stars had to do to continue being pop stars.
It’s like dying your hair.
You have to keep f—ing doing it.
The way you write about your mother is complex: child abuse, anger, devastation over her death.
You also note that you think about her every time you sing “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
Are you now able to reconcile your twin responses to your mother?
Well, a toddler can’t afford to accept the reality of what the parent really is.
I loved my mother despite her behavior because I had Stockholm Syndrome, which was a survival mechanism.
The fact is that children are very complicated and love is like a planted tree.
At least that is the case when I love.
That’s the way I felt about my mum.
I felt sorry for her, to be honest.
And a lot of children who grew up like I did would say the same thing.
The picture of the Pope that you tore up onSNLwas your mother’s photograph.
How much of that action was a personal outcry against her?
It was about my country.
Faith was the real abuser.
The action of ripping up the Pope to me was about the people who facilitate the monsters.
The real guilty party are the ones who don’t do anything and cover it up.
I didn’t need vindication.
The one who needs vindicating is God.
What do you mean?
God and religion are two very different things.
I never let any of the negativity of Catholicism make me think that there was no God.
The very purpose of that negativity is to make people think there’s no God.
I never fell out of love with God.
As a Muslim I still think God and religion are two different things.
When you study the Quran, you see that God hates it.
Religion is a f—ing tool of the devil as well.
It’s a smoke screen.
Did music have a paternal quality for you?
Bob Dylan’s did.
Strictly Bob Dylan, with flashings of John Lennon, but only the angry John Lennon.
Bob gave me permission to be angry because of his song “Idiot Wind.”
None of us would like to be the person he’s talking to [in that].
That’s why I love Bob Dylan.
He’s utterly honest.
He can be real f—ing nasty.
Most of us make a run at hide that.
But “Idiot Wind” made me want to write songs.
Were you ever overwhelmed by its enormity?
No, I never thought about it.
Do you know why?
I hate [writing about my musicianship].
It’s like washing the dishes.
I was never overwhelmed by it or gave it a second thought.
Later, you recall a scary incident with Princewho wrote your No.
1 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U"in which you say he chased you at his L.A. home.
Did you consider not performing the song after that?
No, because the song wasn’t his, it was mine.
It’s my song.
It never crossed my mind before I met him, or after.
I never heard him sing it before I recorded it.
I didn’t associate it with him at all.
In your early pursuit of a career, you were told horribly sexist things by people in your orbit.
Did it take an emotional toll on you?
No, it didn’t.
When it comes to how I look, how I sing, how I talk, I’m confident.
Nothing to do with how I look.
We are all a work of art when we step out the door.
That punch in of thing doesn’t impact me.
Was that humiliation happening in the early days too?
It began not long after I put out my first single.
They wanted to make me look crazy.
Why do you think they were keen to pass you off as crazy?
I realized I fell into a similar category as these rap guys because clearly I was dangerous.
It took me 20 years to figure out why.
Why were you dangerous?
I was talking about things people are not supposed to talk about.
They didn’t kill John Lennon for nothing.
The decade after John Lennon died, everything was fake.
Ten years of crap f—ing music.
He was still brilliant, but he wasn’t writing songs that could possibly get him killed.
Everybody’s safe, nobody’s feeling.
Then I came along and the songs were bringing up feelings that people were uncomfortable with.
I was talking about s— that’s uncomfortable to talk about.
And I wasn’t in shadow.
Did you feel any kinship with those rappers or Kurt Cobain at the time?
Did they reach out?
It wasn’t like that.
It was so heavy at that time and it was every man for himself.
NWA’sStraight Outta Comptonchanged the world.
That record gave everybody who was angry about anything a chance to dance around.
Rap gave people permission to be f—ing angry.
In Ireland you weren’t allowed to be angry, especially if you were a woman.
But the industry punished you and them for that anger?
It was a question of who was a c—sucker and who wasn’t.
How do you control the world?
You control young people.
How do you control young people?
They put records out that meant absolutely nothing.
Anything else and you couldn’t make a living.
Some people went the c—sucker way like MC f—ing Hammer.
Him and Vanilla Ice were tools of the f—ing devil.
They silenced and groomed a generation of songwriters in the same way that Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga do.
They’ve been used by the industry.
She didn’t have a childhood, did she?
So you don’t think Miley and Gaga are empowered…
It would take 100 years to answer that question.
But the powers that run this world don’t want to be put out of their position.
They would be put out if the youth revolted.
Music is always under attack.
The industry is so frightened of music that they want to silence it.
The industry was frightened of me.
There’d been no such f—ing thing as a woman like me.
I was this unusual bitch who slipped through the cracks.
The industry asked: What do we do with her?
Well, she’s very strong, so we can’t kill her.
The next best thing is to make it look like she’s crazy.
You’ve battled mental health issues for years, sometimes publicly.
I would not be able to tell it without breaking the privacy of certain people.
I don’t want to relive some really f—ing painful s—.
You don’t spend all this money on therapy for f— all.
I must be careful.
In 2015 you had a breakdown after your menopause.
You filmed an Instagram video at that time that caught the world’s attention.
Do you regret it?
No, I don’t regret being myself.
There’s a thing about singers.
We’re a different breed.
Offstage singers don’t do shame or embarrassment.
My job is to be me.
What do you think the music industry could be doing better for people with mental health issues?
Not the broker, or the booking agents, but the underwriters.
If an artist is incapacitated and can’t perform, they shouldn’t have to pay.
The insurance should cover it so we don’t lose our house if we’re too sick to work.
Underwriters ought to have access to our medical records and teams before, during, and after tours.
That’s why Amy Winehouse is dead.
She kept being pushed out on tour when she should have been in the hospital.
I’ve met several fatherly guys in the U.K. who were her drivers to and from shows.
They all said they wanted to beat the s— out of her handlers.
Step two: Routing of tours is completely inconsiderate of any person with mental illness.
Sleep being the number-one priority.
If you have any pop in of mental health condition, the number-one thing you need is stability.
I need to take my meds and sleep through the night.
Part of my condition is post-traumatic stress disorder.
I have fear in my body, so I need things to be very calm before shows.
Nobody’s ever asked how the industry can take better care of you?
Nobody, in any area of my life.
And I’ve been in the music business since I was 14.
I’m 54 now.
