How Did Sinead O’Connor Die? Her Cause Of Death Was Revealed 6 Months Later
She was a legendary musician and performer, admired for her feminist sense of resolve in the face of controversy. So, the news of how Sinéad O’Connor died was upsetting for fans, particularly with the knowledge that her career was plagued by mental health struggles.
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If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential counseling.
Born on December 8, 1966, Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor—later to become Shuhada’ Sadaqat when she converted to Islam in 2018—released her debut album in 1987, The Lion and The Cobra. It charted internationally and was followed by her second album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got would become her biggest success with the single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, written by Prince.
O’Connor (she would maintain this as her stage name) would go on to make 10 studio albums across her career, the last of which was released in 2014 titled I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss. But she would never conform to the presence expected, or demanded, of her. “The media was making me out to be crazy because I wasn’t acting like a pop star was supposed to act,” she told the New York Times in 2021. “It seems to me that being a pop star is almost like being in a type of prison. You have to be a good girl.”
Rememberings by Sinead O’Connor
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In October 1992, she appeared on Saturday Night Live, singing an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War”, which she intended as a protest against the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. She then showed a photograph of Pope John Paul II to the camera before tearing it up. It was said to have killed her career. “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” she continued to the Times. “But it was very traumatizing,” she added.
“It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.” It wouldn’t be until 10 years later that the Pope would finally acknowledge the institution’s history of sexual abuse. But privately, O’Connor was battling complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder, after originally being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Then on July 26, 2023, news broke that Sinead O’Connor had died, unexpectedly insofar as her fans could tell.
How did Sinéad O’Connor die?
How did Sinéad O’Connor die? On the day the news broke—July 26, 2023—no cause of death was given but on January 9, 2024, the coroner’s report finally concluded she died at 56 of “natural causes”. The court added that they had ceased their involvement in O’Connor’s death.
The Guardian reported that London Metropolitan Police were called at 11.18 am Wednesday morning to an “unresponsive woman” at a residential address in south London. O’Connor had moved to the city just weeks prior to her death. “Officers attended. A 56-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Next of kin have been notified. The death is not being treated as suspicious. A file will be prepared for the coroner.”
The Irish Times was the first outlet to report that O’Connor had passed, with a statement from her family that read: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
Sinéad O’Connor’s funeral
On August 8, 2023, Sinéad O’Connor was laid to rest in the coastal town of Bray, south of Dublin, Ireland. O’Connor who converted to Islam in 2018, had a funeral that reflected her faith and kept with an old Irish custom, as her coffin was first carried past her last family home. Prior to the procession, O’Connor’s family held a private funeral service , according to RTE, which reported that Irish President Michael D. Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were in attendance as well as Bob Geldof and U2’s frontman Bono were among the mourners
“The more she sang and spoke about her own pain, as well as about the pervasive sins in society that she witnessed, the more her voice and her words resonated with listeners and touched their hearts,” Islamic scholar Umar Al-Qadri, who led the burial. He continued that she had been “gifted with a voice that moved a generation of young people” and “could reduce listeners to tears by her otherworldly resonance.”
Instructions to her kids
During an interview with People in 2021, O’Connor revealed her instructions to her children in the event of her death, including why she told them to call her accountant before 911. “See, when the artists are dead, they’re much more valuable than when they’re alive. Tupac has released way more albums since he died than he ever did alive, so it’s kind of gross what record companies do,” she said. O’Connor continued, “That’s why I’ve always instructed my children since they were very small, ‘If your mother drops dead tomorrow—before you called 911—call my accountant and make sure the record companies don’t start releasing my records and not telling you where the money is.’”
Past attempts
In an interview with Dr. Phil in 2017, O’Connor revealed she’d attempted suicide no less than eight times in one year after being “flung” into menopause by a “radical” hysterectomy (removal of the uterus). “What kicked all of this off really was, I had a radical hysterectomy in Ireland two years ago and I lost my mind after that,” she said. “And that’s what I think happened with my family, and we have to give my family credit. They’re not here to speak for themselves so I don’t want to disrespect them, but the fact is, they didn’t know who the hell I was.”
She continued: “I was told to leave the hospital two days after the surgery with Tylenol and no hormone replacement and no guidance as to what might happen to me. I was flung into surgical menopause. Hormones were everywhere. I became very suicidal. I was a basket case. After the hysterectomy, I was mental.”
Miley Cyrus rethinks her “Wrecking Ball” feud with Sinead
Miley Cyrus admitted in August 2023 that she’d rethink her feud with Sinead O’Connor after learning about the “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer’s fragile mental state.
The feud began in 2013 when Cyrus compared her “Wrecking Ball” music video with O’Connor’s biggest hit in an interview with Rolling Stone. “It’s the opposite of the VMAs. It’s like the Sinead O’Connor video [for “Nothing Compares 2 U”], but, like, the most modern version. I wanted it to be tough but really pretty – that’s what Sinead did with her hair and everything,” Cyrus said.
O’Connor responded to the comment with an open letter addressed to Cyrus. “I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos,” wrote O’Connor. “It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether it’s the music business or yourself doing the pimping.”
Cyrus responded in turn by making fun of several tweets O’Connor had posted and comparing her to Amanda Bynes, who was publicly experiencing mental health struggles. Upon reflection though, Cyrus said she’d approach the backlash differently.
In her hulu special Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions), Cyrus said, “I had no idea about the fragile mental state that she was in. And I was also only 20 years old. So I could really only wrap my head around mental illness so much.”
She continued: “All that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea, and even if I was convinced that it was, it was still just men in power’s idea of me and they had manipulated me to believe that it was my own idea when it never really was. And it was. And it is. And I still love it.”
Cyrus went on: “Our younger childhood triggers and traumas come up in weird and odd ways, and I think I had just been judged for so long for my own choices that I was just exhausted. I was in this place where I finally was making my own choices and my own decisions, and to have that taken away from me deeply upset me. … God bless Sinéad O’Connor for real, in all seriousness.”
Her son Shane’s death
In January 2022, O’Connor’s 17-year-old son (custody of whom she’d lost in 2013) had gone missing while on suicide watch at Tallaght Hospital. His body was recovered several days later. “My beautiful son, Nevi’im Nesta Ali Shane O’Connor, the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God,” O’Connor wrote on social media in tribute to him at the time. “May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much. Please be at peace.”
A week after Shane was found dead, O’Connor shared a troubling series of tweets that suggested she was planning on taking her own life. “I’ve decided to follow my son. There is no point living without him. Everything I touch, I ruin. I only stayed for him. And now he’s gone,” she wrote on an unverified Twitter account linked to her official account.
An hour later, she revealed she had admitted herself to hospital. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I am with cops now on way to hospital. I’m sorry I upset everyone,” she posted, adding: “I am lost without my kid and I hate myself. Hospital will help a while. But I’m going to find Shane. This is just a delay.”
Her mother
During the Dr. Phil interview, O’Connor also said her mother, Marie, tortured O’Connor and her siblings physically and mentally. “She had the smell of evil about her.” Marie died in a car accident in 1985. “The first thing that came to mind, actually, is that she’s dead,” she said, admitting it was a strange thing to say. “I think that it was very kind of her, although I miss her horribly. I really ache for her and I think that’s part of where my suicidal instinct comes from is that I want my mother. But I cannot wait the day that I naturally get to Heaven so I can see my mother again.”
Why Sinéad O’Connor shaved her head
O’Connor also explained why she shaved her head. “When we were children, my sister had the most glorious red hair,” O’Connor recalled, “like that gorgeous woman on that show Mad Men (Christina Hendricks) … But my mother took it into her head that my sister’s hair was ugly and horrible and disgusting. When I had long hair, she would introduce us as her pretty daughter and her ugly daughter. And that’s why I chopped my hair off. I didn’t want to be pretty. And it was dangerous to be pretty, too, because I kept getting raped and molested everywhere I went.” When she was an up-and-coming artist in the late 80s, music executives asked if she would grow out her hair and wear short skits. “I didn’t want to be sold on that,” she told McGraw. “If I was going to be successful, I wanted it to be because I was a good musician. Plus, I came from an age of protest singers.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential counseling.
Rememberings: Scenes from My Complicated Life
Rememberings by Sinead O’Connor
Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world-famous—living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U.”
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