Irish singer and songwriter Sinead O'Connor is remembering things differently, opening up about how she sees her infamous Saturday Night Live Pope picture fiasco, her experiences with Prince, and much more.
One of the stories Sinead discusses leading up to the release of her new memoir Rememberings on June 1 revolves around the time she had covered the enigmatic superstar Prince's song "Nothing Compares 2 U" and the violent encounter she had with him in 1991.
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In the Times interview, O’Connor remembers a violent confrontation she had with the singer in the early nineties after being invited to his home in Hollywood, alleging in the book that Prince "chastised her for swearing in interviews, harangued his butler to serve her soup though she repeatedly refused it, and sweetly suggested a pillow fight only to thump her with something hard he’d slipped into his pillowcase." Sinead also admits that after she had managed to escape, Prince “stalked her with his car, leapt out and chased her around the highway.”
Understanding that "you’ve got to be crazy to be a musician," O'Connor says she views it as a "difference between being crazy and being a violent abuser of women.” When it all comes down to it, however, Sinead remains defiant. Although the track was written by Prince, "as far as I’m concerned," she says, "it’s my song."
This isn't the first time O'Connor has disclosed the story. Following prior discussions, in 2019 she told Good Morning Britain, "Prince tried to beat me up... It was a very frightening experience. He summoned me to his house one night and I foolishly went alone. He was uncomfortable with the fact I wasn’t a protege of his and that I’d just recorded the song." She also said Prince was "into some dark drugs" at the time and that she was not the only woman he had attacked. After she slippped out in the middle of the night, Sinead said she "had to go ring someone’s doorbell, which my father always told me to do if I was in a situation like that.”
While the mystifying singer is still shaving her head because she admittedly doesn't "feel like me when I have hair,” O'Connor now wears a hijab after converting to Islam a few years back. She also changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat, although she continues to answer to Sinead.
The singer revealed plans to enter a year of treatment for trauma and addiction in an emotional Twitter thread at the end of 2020 saying the combination of substance addiction and grief from the recent death of a loved one drove her to seek help professional help. Aside from the new memoir, Sinead also has plans to release her 11th studio album in 2021 -- her first since 2014's I'm Not Bossy, I'm The Boss.
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