27 July 2023 , 09:21
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Irish superstar Sinead O'Connor rose to fame with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra in the late eighties. But it was her 1990 hit Nothing Compares 2 U that catapulted her to worldwide success.
Sinead, whose family announced she had died at the age of 56 on Wednesday evening, will be known for her iconic arrangement of the ballad, along with the music video where she is filmed movingly singing into the camera as tears stream down her face.
The song was in fact a new arrangement of Prince’s that he wrote for The Family - a funk band signed to his label - in 1984.
It caught the attention of Sinead who made it her own and managed to turn it into one of the most played songs of the decade. Thanks to the emotional track, which was nominated for three Grammys, Sinead became instantly recognisable.
Prince wrote Nothing Compares 2 U (Redferns)At the time, renowned artist Prince, of Purple Rain fame, praised the rendition, saying: “I love it, it’s great! I look for cosmic meaning in everything. I think we just took that song as far as we could, then someone else was supposed to come along and pick it up.”
Sinéad O’Connor, 56, has died 18 months after her son's tragic death
But Sinead later told The Times in 2021 that his statement was disingenuous. “Firstly, Prince didn’t like people covering his songs,” she said. The Irish star went on to claim that Prince assaulted her.
“Secondly, he had all these female protégés, and he was annoyed that I wasn’t one of them. Thirdly, my manager Steve Fargnoli had been his manager, and they were involved in a legal case. On top of all this, he was a woman-beating c**t. I’m certainly not the only woman he laid a hand on”.
Her comment related to an alleged altercation between the stars that took place when they reportedly met at his Hollywood mansion once the track topped the charts. In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, she claimed that the American singer, who died from an accidental drug overdose in 2016, scolded her for swearing in interviews and suggested they aired out their differences with a pillow fight at his home.
Sinead O'Connor claimed Prince tried to beat her up in terrifying drug-fuelled attack (ITV)However Sinead claimed that the playfight got out of hand. Speaking in an interview with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain in 2019, Sinead said: “We tried to beat each other up... it's not a joke at all, it was a very frightening experience actually.
"In Los Angeles, he summoned me to his house one night and I foolishly went along not knowing where I was." Sinead said Prince felt "uncomfortable" because she wasn't his "protégé" and that he made demands of her.
"He ordered me that I don't swear any more in interviews," she said, going on to say that "Irish people swear all the time". She added: "I told him where to go and then he went for me and then he went upstairs and got a pillow with something hard in it.
"I ran out of his house and was hiding behind a tree, he was going this way in his car, we meet on a highway in Malibu at 5 o'clock in the morning we're running around his car, I'm spitting on him and he's trying to punch me." Sinead then said she ran away and rang someone's doorbell for help.
In her memoir, Sinead revealed that the pair didn’t meet again after the alleged frenzy over the 1990 hit. The music icon's death was confirmed in a statement by her family yesterday evening, with an outpouring of kind tributes immediately following.
The singer’s family said: "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." The Irish singer is survived by three children. Her son Shane passed away last year at the age of 17.
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Sinead O'Connor's heartbreaking final post before tragic death at just 56