Sinead O'Connor Rips Pope Yet Again, Joins Islam
From hair to sobriety to headlines Sinead O’Connor has always had quite the buzz about her. Ehhh?! Ehhhh?!
In fact, it was twenty-six years ago this month when she ripped a photo of Pope John Paul II live on SNL cementing a place for herself in pop-culture history.
Disgusted not necessarily with the Pope himself but with a religious culture that allowed & hid the abuse of children, especially in her homeland of Ireland, it was a bold protest. She received tons of backlash that changed the course of her career & the tone of public opinion from then on. In fact, the following week Joe Pesci hosted SNL saying,
“She’s lucky it wasn’t my show. Cause if it was my show, I would have gave her such a smack.”
(As a former Catholic myself who feels so disappointed & disillusioned by the handling of child abuse cases in the church I can handily overlook her other issues to say I now feel she was waaaaaay brave & ahead of her time on speaking out about that particular subject.)
(Annnnd as a former Catholic myself I will now worry & feel automatic guilt about saying these things even though it’s true. Ts & Ps.. Sorry to put that heavy burden on ya J-Man…)
A couple years before that drama she endorsed the Irish Republican Army (IRA) & then rescinded her stance the following year. She then denied a Grammy Award in ’91 complaining about commercialism. There was plenty more making news after that & it wasn’t too long ago that she went missing in the Chicago suburbs after posting cryptic messages. (She was obviously found safe.)
With that random Sinead O’Connor history lesson over, I can tell you she’s back in the news again and this time it’s for converting to Islam & changing her name to Shuhada Davitt. FYI: Last year she’d changed it to Magda Davitt to free herself from ‘parental curses’ & I’m taking bets on what it will be next year.
Regarding her conversion she said, “This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey.” And quite the journey it’s been…
In the ’90s she was ordained as a priest by a sub-sect of Catholicism & the mom of 4 has certainly experimented with all sorts of spiritual persuasions. Now Islam is her latest muse.
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Wow, so yeah, if you want to mildly-sort-of-but-not-quite-really impress the shit out of someone with Sinead O’Connor factoids I hope you enjoyed this blog. If not, I’m really, really sorry. (There’s that Catholic guilt again, heh heh!)
To close it out on a high note, here’s my favorite version of the song that made her famous, Nothing Compares 2 U. (It was originally by Prince. #RIP.) Highly recommend giving it a full listen through… perfect for ugly-singing on a road trip.