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O’Connor shared the heartbreaking story of why she first shaved her head while chatting to Dr. Phil in 2017. The Nothing Compares 2 U songstress, who passed away this week at the age of 56, was celebrated for her signature androgynous look and kept with the iconic style throughout her career. She kept no-to-short hair all her life, never growing the buzzcut longer than a pixie cut. And while the look suited her down to the ground, the reason behind it is heartbreaking. As recently as 2021, O’Connor was still shaving her own head “about every 10 days,” as she told the New York Times that year, despite often wearing a hijab following her 2018 conversion to Islam.
The story behind Sinéad O’Connor’s shaved head: ‘It said, ‘Don’t f—k with me”
With her short hair and wide eyes, the Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, who has died at the age of 56, cast a powerful silhouette onstage during her music career. The height of her power came in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including a divisive 1992 appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in which she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. She signed to Ensign Records in 1985 and released her first album, The Lion and the Cobra, two years later. The album cover alone – a shaved-bald O’Connor grimacing, fists raised – was markedly different from the female songwriter norm, and the stark, abrasive music experimented in a way that aligned her with Kate Bush and Björk. Five months before its release, she gave birth to her first child, Jake, whose father was John Reynolds, the drummer on the album. When Irish singer/songwriter Sinéad O'Connor burst onto the music scene in the late '80s, the industry hadn't heard or seen anyone like her.
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O’Connor favoured short hair throughout her life, either the buzzcut or a very short pixie style, such as the one seen in 1994 track Famine. She also revealed she suffered from PTSD because of the abuse she received as a child. O'Connor had spoken publicly about her mental health struggles over the years and admitted she battled thoughts of suicide and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It comes 18 months after the mother-of-four's son Shane, 17, took his life in January 2022 after escaping hospital while on suicide watch.
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The Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer, who was also part of the concert’s lineup, offered high praise for Waters’ performance on Instagram. “Sing along if you like,” Waters, 28, told the crowd before launching into her mother’s classic 1990 hit. Countering that she was a “desperate attention-seeker”, Hall filed a defamation suit for $5m. The performance has been going viral on social media, with many fans showering Sinead with praise. The Nothing Compares 2 U hitmaker had a shaggy boyish hairstyle throughout the mid to late 90s, and then returned to the style again in the 2010s.
Sinéad O'Connor
Commercially, it was the apex of a career that tormented rather than fulfilled her. The internationally renowned Irish musician - best known for the song 'Nothing Compares 2 U' - first shaved her head at the age of 20 ahead of the release of her first album. O’Connor’s second husband was a journalist, Nick Sommerlad, and the third the musician Steve Cooney. She is survived by her son Jake, a daughter, Róisín, from a relationship with the journalist John Waters, a son, Yeshua, from a relationship with Frank Bonadio, and a grandchild. In 2007, she told The Guardian that she didn’t “feel like me” unless she had her head shaved.
The late Irish artist’s baldness was inextricably linked to her identity, and she wielded it throughout her life as a weapon, a shield, and a means of amplifying her music. But O'Connor's hair also became more than just a symbol of defiance against the sexualisation of women in the industry, it eventually became a part of her. However, it wasn't just her mother, the abuse and assault she experienced which led to O'Connor deciding to shave her hair off. In an interview with TV psychologist Dr Phil, O'Connor revealed the reasons behind the look.
The heartbreaking story behind Sinead O’Connor’s trademark look
"I didn't want to be sold on that. If I was going to be successful, I wanted it to be because I was a good musician." In a sit-down interview with Dr Phil in 2017, the Nothing Compares 2 U hitmaker opened up about how her signature look came about. She initially chopped all her hair off in her youth in solidarity with her sister. So instead of going along with the label, which wanted to market her as a “generic female,” O’Connor headed straight to a barber and shaved off what was left of her locks. From Britney Spears to Natalie Portman to Jada Pinkett Smith, a great many celebrities have made headlines by shaving off their hair — but Sinéad O’Connor’s symbolic buzzcut might be the most famous of them all. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.
Sinéad O'Connor: 'I don't feel like me unless I have my hair shaved' ｜ BANG Showbiz English - 共同通信
Sinéad O'Connor: 'I don't feel like me unless I have my hair shaved' ｜ BANG Showbiz English.
Posted: Wed, 02 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
According to legend, the perpetual five o’clock shadow that studded Sinéad O’Connor’s skull for most of her life started out as a defiant fuck-you to the music industry—and, in particular, the record executives who wanted her to “tart” herself up a tad. "I didn’t want to be raped or molested, I did not want to dress like a girl, I did not want to be pretty. Other girls beat you up if you were pretty too." Despite her incredible voice and musical success, O’Connor’s bold look caused tension between herself and record executives in the run-up to the launch of her first album in 1987, The Lion and the Cobra.
Britney Spears, Sinéad O'Connor and the Radical Act of a Haircut - TIME
Britney Spears, Sinéad O'Connor and the Radical Act of a Haircut.
Posted: Sun, 04 Jul 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Sinéad O’Connor dies aged 56
She often seemed fragile, using social media to argue publicly with members of her family. “They wanted me to grow my hair long, wear short skirts and high heels and makeup and write songs that wouldn’t challenge anything,” the singer revealed in an interview with the Sun in 2022. She was looking forward to releasing a new album, No Veteran Dies Alone, in 2021; a single, Trouble of the World, appeared, but the project was halted when she announced her retirement from music, though she quickly changed her mind about that decision.
The Steve Cooney to whom Sinéad O’Connor was married is a musician rather than an actor. After the death of her son in 2022 she was briefly admitted to hospital after posting online that she had 'decided to follow' his path. In 2012 she cancelled a tour after suffering a 'very serious breakdown', and in 2015 revealed she had overdosed at a hotel in Ireland. The Irish Grammy-winning singer, whose cause of death is not yet known, became world famous in 1990 with her heartrending cover of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U. "They wanted me to grow my hair really long and wear miniskirts and all that kind of stuff because they reckoned I'd look much prettier," she says.
As a talented young singer during the' 80s, O'Connor quickly realized how much a woman's appearance impacted how she was received. But once O’Connor created this image and placed it on the public stage, other people were suddenly free to run with it, sinking their claws into it and playing with it, trying to interpret her. She became a supernatural creature (Rolling Stone) and a female version of The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten (New Musical Express). With her Doc Martens, she was a little too close to the punks who flirted with fascist ideology for some; when she stenciled Public Enemy’s logo onto her head at the 1989 Grammys in solidarity with the band, she was too political for others. Prior to the release of her first album, The Lion and the Cobra, O'Connor was asked whether she would re-grow her hair 'long' and 'wear short skirts'. O'Connor also noted how it was 'dangerous to be pretty' and resulted in her 'getting raped and molested everywhere' she went.
"I had grown up in a manner which... I'm sure a lot of women will relate to, where it was dangerous to be a female," O'Connor says. "So, I always had that sense that it was quite important to protect myself -- make myself as unattractive as I possibly could." She graduated from The University of Manchester in 2021 with a First in English Literature and Drama, where alongside her studies she was Editor-in-Chief of The Tab Manchester. A wave of stars have since followed the trend, with high-profile women such as Demi Lovato, Kristen Stewart and, most recently, Florence Pugh shaving their heads.
It was confirmed by O’Connor’s loved ones on Wednesday (July 26) that she had died aged 56. Following the tragic news of her death, we take a look at the real reason why she did it.
This basic kit instilled the idea of music as a career; a decade later, O’Connor topped charts around the world with the single Nothing Compares 2 U. But the late Irish songstress, who died this week aged 56, spent many years rocking a longer hairstyle. O'Connor says record executives also had a very specific idea of how they wanted her to look to her fans and the public -- an unappealing idea that she says motivated her to adopt her now-iconic shaved head. He calls her a “vixen succubus” with “the most beautiful, fuckable Irish Brogue and skin that looks like it would melt butter.” He wants to pick her up and throw her across the table, even in her unfashionable Elmer Fudd-style hat, he informs us. In a 2022 blog post that diagnoses O’Connor with “Joan of Arc syndrome,” McNeil meditates on the profile and his subsequent encounters with O’Connor, recalling an episode where he squired her up to Harlem so she could get “tram lines” carved into her hair.
As her most distinctive trait, it was also an easy target for those determined to make her a late-night joke. Comedian Arsenio Hall referred to her as “that little bald lady,” while Andrew Dice Clay, perhaps stung by her refusal to appear on SNL alongside him, poked fun at the “bald chick” in a sketch. But even if it wasn’t a statement to O’Connor, the shaved look was undeniably a tool. Contrary to McNeil’s assessment that she “was just making it up as she went along,” there was an element of strategy to O’Connor’s rise through the industry. It featured prominently on most of her albums, including her 1990 masterpiece, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.
No one in the barber’s shop could understand her accent, so McNeil interpreted as she settled into, he writes, a child’s seat on the barber chair. The next day, O’Connor traipsed down to the barber’s shop, where a young Greek barber shed a single horrified tear as he took the buzzer to her scalp. His weeping, she reminded The Washington Post in an interview promoting Rememberings, was reminiscent of the single tear she herself shed in the “Nothing Compares 2 U” music video. It was also a symbol with the power to exacerbate whatever you already thought about her—that she was a defiant warrior; a freak; an insecure woman; an angst-ridden teen; a little girl who needed saving. It nearly became synecdoche for all that she was, until she climbed onstage and reminded you that, no, she was not just her shaved head.
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