By Adam Bloodworth
The Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has died after a long battle with her mental health.
O’Connor was 56 and will be remembered most fondly for her 1990 cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U. She retired from the music industry in 2021, having released 10 studio albums, with one more to come posthumously, called No Veteran Dies Alone.
O’Connor had said her mother mentally and physically about her as a child, which led to lifelong mental health struggles. O’Connor was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the mid-2000s and spoke publically about how she had attempted suicide. She had also been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.
No cause of death has yet been identified.
Her son, 17-year-old Shane, took his own life in 2022 after he had escaped from hospital while on suicide watch.
The singer was born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor in Dublin in December 1966 and went on to establish herself as a major recording artist from the 1980s.
O’Connor had posted many open messages about her mental health on social media throughout the years. In 2017 she posted a 12-minute video on Facebook talking about her desire to take her own life, and had recently written about her late son Shane. In her last social post she called him “the love of my life, the lamp of my soul.”
O’Connor was also known for her complicated relationship with religion. She had been ordained as a priest, and in 2018 changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat when she converted to Islam.
