Fans around the world continue to mourn Sinéad O’Connor, the acclaimed Irish singer who died last week at the age of 56.
The details around O’Connor’s death are still unknown, but the singer struggled with trauma and mental health issues throughout her life, and had recently been dealing with the tragic death of her teenage son.
Now, one friend and fellow musician is opening up about the “despair and sorrow” O’Connor expressed in the weeks before her passing.
Irish musician Bob Geldof was longtime friends with O’Connor: he grew up down the road from her and, as a fellow musician-activist, respected O’Connor for speaking her mind even when it led to controversy.
Days after O’Connor’s death, the Boomtown Rats frontman appeared at the Cavan Calling festival in Ireland, and paid tribute to the “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer.
“She meant a lot to everyone. She meant a lot to us,” he told the crowd. “I grew up with the O’Connors and they were great and she is a pistol… She was relentless. She had a voice like none of us have ever heard – so pure. And being a great artist, that voice completely represented her soul and her spirit and whenever we hear that we’ll always be with that great woman.”
Geldof called her “the Maud Gonne of our time,” referring to the Irish revolutionary and muse of W. B. Yeats, a “revolutionary woman — years ahead of her time — who told the truth, who was a great artist and who was a radical and an activist at the same time.”
He also revealed that O’Connor had sent him text messages in the weeks up to her death that were often filled with “despair.”
“Many, many times Sinead was full of a terrible loneliness and a terrible despair,” he said. “She was a very good friend of mine. We were talking right up to a couple of weeks ago. Some of her texts were laden with desperation and despair and sorrow and some were ecstatically happy. She was like that.”
Geldof and his band then played “Mary of the 4th Form” as a tribute, which he said was O’Connor’s favorite Boomtown Rats song.
Geldof later praised O’Connor’s most infamous and controversial protest, in which she tore up a photo of John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, protesting the Vatican’s cover-up of child sexual abuse crimes.
“She tore up the picture of the Pope because she saw me tear up the picture of John Travolta on Top Of The Pops,” Geldof said. “It was a little more extreme than tearing up f***ing disco. Tearing up the Vatican is a whole other thing but more correct actually. I should have done it.”
The stunt was widely publicized and criticized at the time and hurt O’Connor’s mainstream popularity, but many have since defended her actions and praised her for speaking up even at the risk to her career.
Sinéad O’Connor was announced dead on July 26; she was reportedly found unresponsive but a cause of death has not been revealed. Authorities later said that the death was not being treated as “suspicious.”
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad,” her family said in a statement to The Irish Times. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
O’Connor was acclaimed as a musician, reached worldwide mainstream success in the early 1990s with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” but also long struggled with trauma and mental health issues. She said her mother abused her as a child and was placed in an asylum for shoplifting and truancy issues when she was 15.
In 2007 she told Oprah Winfrey that she attempted suicide on her 33rd birthday, and was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.
Last year, O’Connor suffered the loss of her 17-year-old son Shane, who committed suicide. O’Connor vowed never to sing again after her son’s death, canceling an upcoming tour and postponing her new album: “There will never be anything to sing about again,” she said.
O’Connor was clearly still struggling with the heartbreaking loss in the days before her death. One of her final tweets was about Shane.
“Been living as undead night creature since,” she wrote in the emotional tweet on July 17. “He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul. We were one soul in two halves. He was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally.”
After her passing, many celebrities have expressed their condolences and shared tributes and memories of O’Connor, including P!nk, Brandi Carlile and Russell Crowe.
Bob Geldof’s tribute is a bittersweet reminder of how Sinead O’Connor was at once a gifted and unique artist and someone who was battling inner demons — we hope she is at peace now 💔❤️
Please share this story in memory of Sinead O’Connor.
READ MORE:
- Sinéad O’Connor, acclaimed and controversial Irish singer of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ dead at 56
- Sinéad O’Connor’s heartbreaking last words before death revealed
- UK police release statement on Sinéad O’Connor’s death – confirm the tragic rumors
- P!nk and Brandi Carlile honor Sinéad O’Connor with stunning ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ cover
