'They are disgusting': Sinead O'Connor mouths off on 'white people'

Irish musician Sinead O'Connor, who in late October revealed she has converted to Islam, has taken a swipe at non-Muslim people, classing them as "white people" and saying she never wants to "spend time with them" again.

O'Connor, who also changed her name to Shuhada' Davitt when she changed religion, wrote on Twitter,  "I'm terribly sorry. What I'm about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it.

"But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that's what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting."

The tweet comes after a string of politically- and racially-charged messages from the Nothing Compares 2 U singer, 51, who has spoken before about abuse she receives from followers.

"Occasionally I shut my account for 24 hours to clear (white male's) abuse," she wrote on November 3. "If you see the account is down, please know it will reappear within 24 hours."

In late October, she wrote of a "long haired blonde lady with prejudice" who O'Connor said had questioned her for an extended period of time about why she had chosen to wear a hijab since her conversion to Islam.

"But her long hair is just a western version of hijab," O'Connor argued. "I figure shave it if you’re really against hijab."

Sinead O'Connor performs in 2014.Credit: AP

O'Connor's move to Islam isn't the first time she's taken a strong religious stance: in the late '90s, she was ordained as a priest by the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, a group not affiliated with the Catholic Church, which O'Connor has long opposed.

After later becoming disillusioned with the church, she requested to be excommunicated, writing an open letter to Pope Francis in August this year to ask for the certificate to prove it.

The singer has also publicly struggled with mental health issues in recent years. In 2015, she admitted to overdosing after reaching a particularly low point in her life. "I'm invisible. I don't matter a shred to anyone," she said at the time. "No one has come near me. I've died a million times already with the pain of it."

Recently, O'Connor thanked her "Muslim brothers and sisters" for welcoming her into the religion, using the Arabic word for community, "Ummah".

"Thank you so much to all my Muslim brothers and sisters who have been so kind as to welcome me to Ummah today on this page," she wrote on Twitter.

"You can’t begin to imagine how much your tenderness means to me."