Sinead O'Connor said she has no regrets over ripping up a photo of the Pope on live TV insisting: “I didn’t throw away my career.”
The Dublin singer speaks about the 1992 controversy in new documentary Nothing Compares which is due for release on October 7. Sinead, 55, said she tore up Pope John Paul II’s picture because she had “f*** all” to lose – but she didn’t expect to receive death threats as a result.
She said: “They all thought I should be made a mockery of for throwing my career down the drain. I never set out to be a pop star, so I didn’t throw away any career.
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“I wasn’t sorry, I didn’t regret it. It was the proudest thing I’ve ever done as an artist. They [critics] killed me but I didn’t die.
“They tried to bury me but they didn’t realise I was a seed.” Sinead’s former publicist Elaine Schock recalled how the stunt caused panic on the Saturday Night Live set, adding: “My blood ran cold.”
The singer’s manager at the time, Claire Lewis, revealed: “I had letters with death threats to me and death threats to Sinead. One day I took in a sack of letters threatening her, me and our team.”
Looking back on the events 30 years later, Sinead reflected on the emotional turmoil caused by the death of her mother Marie in a car crash in February, 1985. She added: “I didn’t know I was going to cry when I sang in the video [for Nothing Compares 2 U], because I didn’t cry in the studio.
“I think it happened because there was a big eye [camera] on me. Every time I sing that song I think of my mother. I never stop crying for my mother.
“I couldn’t face being in Ireland for 13 years because of it. I never called home and it took me 25 years to stop crying.”
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