Sinéad O’Connor told children to “call my accountant” before emergency services in event of her death
Sinéad O’Connor had told her children to contact her accountant before the emergency services in the event of her death.
The musician and activist passed away at her home in London last Wednesday (July 26). She was 56 years old. A cause of death is currently not known, but police said it is not being treated as suspicious.
During a resurfaced 2021 interview with People, O’Connor explained that she’d thought about the importance of protecting her finances and art, and had instructed her children on what to do when she died.
“See, when the artists are dead, they’re much more valuable than when they’re alive,” the singer said at the time. “Tupac has released way more albums since he died than he ever did alive, so it’s kind of gross what record companies do.”
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’.”
Since the news of O’Connor’s death, the likes of Garbage, Billy Corgan, Michael Stipe, Ice-T and Tori Amos have paid tribute.
Elsewhere, Lily Allen said she was “incensed” by some of the “spineless” tributes coming in for the musician, suggesting that the same people would not have stood up for O’Connor while she was alive.
Allen added: “It’s also troubling that people have seemingly felt so empathetic towards her but didn’t feel that they could show it or express it for some reason. Until they died. What does that say about us?”
Morrissey, meanwhile, criticised the music industry over the response to O’Connor’s death. The former Smiths frontman argued that some people’s comments were “hypocritical” when they “hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you”.
“She had only so much ‘self’ to give,” Morrissey wrote. “She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them. She became crazed, yes, but uninteresting, never. She had done nothing wrong.
“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.”
Eleven days prior to her death, O’Connor said in a tweet that she was being harassed by a “violent” stalker. She warned fans to “NEVER engage with anyone claiming they know me without asking my management”.
The singer also claimed that she’d previously dealt with “an extremely disturbed male sexual predator” who “groomed vulnerable female fans on my Twitter page by claiming to be my boyfriend”.
O’Connor’s final social media post revealed the devastating impact of her son’s death last year.
Shane, 17, died by suicide in January 2022 after going missing from Newbridge, County Kildare. O’Connor subsequently cancelled all shows that year in order to focus on “her own health and well being”.
Meanwhile, Bob Geldof has recalled speaking with his friend O’Connor via text message just weeks before her death. “Some of her texts were laden with desperation and despair and sorrow and some were ecstatically happy,” he said. “She was like that.”
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Tom Skinner
NME
