Singer Morrissey slams gushing tributes to Sinead O’Connor

Singer Morrissey has taken furious aim at some of those who’ve paid tribute to the late Sinead O’Connor.

Singer Morrissey has taken aim at some of those who’ve paid tribute to Sinead O’Connor since the Irish singer’s death was announced yesterday.

Police have confirmed that O’Connor was found dead at a London property on Wednesday. She was 56. Her death comes 18 months after the suicide of the youngest of her four children, son Shane, aged just 17.

As news of her death circulated, tributes flowed from fans and other musicians, mourning an incredibly talented artist whose later years were marred by frequent mental health issues.

One day on, always outspoken former Smiths frontman Morrissey has issued a furious note on his website, taking aim at some of those tributes, which he called “sterile slop”.

He argued O’Connor was underappreciated while she was alive: “She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them.”

“She had proud vulnerability … and there is a certain music industry hatred for singers who don’t ‘fit in’ (this I know only too well), and they are never praised until death – when, finally, they can’t answer back. The cruel playpen of fame gushes with praise for Sinead today … with the usual moronic labels of “icon” and “legend”.

“You praise her now ONLY because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you.”

Many are mourning Sinead O’Connor’s death … Picture: Getty

… but Morrissey says some are being disingenuous. Picture: Getty

He also blasted others in the wider industry for not giving O’Connor props while she was alive.

“The press will label artists as pests because of what they withhold … and they would call Sinead sad, fat, shocking, insane … oh but not today! Music CEOs who had put on their most charming smile as they refused her for their roster are queuing-up to call her a ‘feminist icon’, and 15 minute celebrities and goblins from hell and record labels of artificially aroused diversity are squeezing onto Twitter to twitter their jibber-jabber … when it was YOU who talked Sinead into giving up … because she refused to be labelled, and she was degraded, as those few who move the world are always degraded.”

He went on to compare O’Connor to other entertainers who died young, among them Judy Garland, Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse, asking “why is ANYBODY surprised” that they died.

“Where do you go when death can be the best outcome?” he asked.

He finished with an instruction to those who had offered the “insultingly stupid” tributes that O’Connor was an “icon” and a “legend”: “Sinead doesn’t need your sterile slop.”

Morrissey’s note was met with a mixed reaction from fans and others in the industry – among them Boy George, who shared a photo of himself with Sinead on Twitter and wrote: “Morrissey is both wrong and right. Most people had zero influence over Sinead. She was her own person with her own issues. At time like this you can only offer prayers because we are out of solutions. My mum and I had great chats about Sinead. We all wanted her fixed.”

Meanwhile, actor Russell Crowe shared one of the more moving tributes to O’Connor, revealing yesterday that he had met the singer by chance last year outside a pub in Dublin.

She stopped for a chat with he and his friends, and they found themselves having an intense, wide-ranging conversation before O’Connor rose from the table and disappeared back into the night.

After she was gone, “we sat there the four of us and variously expressed the same thing. What an amazing woman. Peace be with your courageous heart Sinéad,” he wrote.

Originally published as Singer Morrissey slams gushing tributes to Sinead O’Connor