Posted on 09/24/2004 2:20:07 PM PDT by Roberts
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - One-time pop sensation Sinead O'Connor was back in the news Friday - by taking out a full-page ad pleading for people to stop making fun of her.
O'Connor, who shot to international fame in 1990 with her biggest hit "Nothing Compares 2 U," claimed she had been "consistently ridiculed, lashed and called mad" for decades, particularly in her native Ireland.
"I don't think there can be any person male or female from this country who has been as consistently lashed as I have been and always am no matter what I set out to do," she complained during her 2,000-word essay published in the Irish Examiner newspaper.
"If ye all think I am such a crazy person why do ye use me to sell your papers?" she wrote, adding, "Please, I just want to be a little old lady now, and not be all controversial and not be bashed and called crazy and laughed at when I open my mouth to sing or speak."
O'Connor, 37, specialized in attention-seeking stunts during her early career, most notoriously in 1992, when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on the U.S. TV show "Saturday Night Live" and declared, "Fight the real enemy." She also courted hostility from American audiences by refusing to allow the U.S. anthem to be played at her concerts there.
In recent years, she's clashed with her own siblings - particularly her brother Joe, an internationally regarded author - about her allegations of an abusive childhood at the hands of her late mother. Her siblings insist she's exaggerating claims of abuse.
She returned to that theme Friday. "Before God let me swear to you that if I or any of us were to tell you what we went through this country would cry for a month. To know that my brothers and sister survived, makes me proud of us all," she wrote.
O'Connor, who married in 2001 and has two children, has continued to court headlines with unusual decisions and occasional essays published in local papers.
She was ordained a priest in a breakaway Catholic sect in 1999, but subsequently stopped referring to herself as "Mother Bernadette Mary" and said she'd found the celibacy rule impossible to follow.
Last year she declared she was retiring from the music business, was interested in a movement called the "Death Midwives" that counsels chronically ill people, and planned to train as a religion teacher for elementary school kids.
She resurfaced on Ireland's airwaves Wednesday, when she told the national RTE radio network about her campaign to stamp out head lice in children.
The spread of head lice is a chronic problem in Irish schools, but some commentators sarcastically noted her pressure group's email address, "nittwit," and poked fun at her appeal for Ireland to stage a "national delousing day."
O'Connor said her efforts to help people were unfairly ridiculed. She compared her treatment to that of U2 frontman Bono, whose lobbying of world governments on such issues as AIDS and Third World debt has earned him respect and humanitarian awards.
"If ye wrote about Bono like you wrote about me, he'd kick your asses," she wrote.
Ye shall reap what ye sow...
nutcase
>>> She resurfaced on Ireland's airwaves Wednesday, when she told the national RTE radio network about her campaign to stamp out head lice in children.
If anybody knows how to stamp out lice, it has got to be Shinehead O'Connor.
ROFLMAO
"If ye wrote about Bono like you wrote about me, he'd kick your asses," she wrote.
Why would God give someone so much talent and so little common sense? Ahhh the mysteries of the universe.
I didn't want to know that.
Question asked question answered.
Honestly can todays celebrities get any more out of touch with reality?
Exactly.
All we need now is for Sinead to endorse John Kerry.
You'd think EVERYONE would have helped her follow it.
Has-been/Never-was Alert!
I always thought her "art" sucked.
Nothing but a rip-off of her peers.
Bono ain't no better.
In both cases, it's no longer "shut up and sing", it's just: "SHUT UP!"
>>Why would God give someone so much talent and so little common sense?<<
What talent? She had one great song that I know of. Did I miss a great talent in what I didn't hear?
Drugs.
*gapes open-mouthed at the lunatic*
egads. Now THERE is a representation that a human being can be a complete waste of oxygen.
She'll have to get used to a lifetime of abuse like Jane Fonda has.
She took her own future into her own hands the day she abused her right to free speach.
I LOVE her brother Joe. I think that I have read EVERY book he has ever written...and in one of them (don't remember which) he does write a bit about their childhood and I remember it as being depressing...but Sinead seems to be a total wack job.
Well, if she didn't act like such a flake, folks might not give her any trouble.
I'm sorry, but when I read this I envision Sinead tap dancing on some kid's head. Come to think of it, I wouldn't put it past her.
Yeah, her pop music is awful but her singing of traditional Irish music is very good.
We hear ya, Sinead babe. But you oughta do something about the cover of your latest album, knowhatimean?
Sinead O'Connor, useless POS, reminds us that we have been negligent in failing to give twits like Bono the ass-kicking that he deserves too. We shall have to do that without letting up on her.
Literally true. and I didn't even like that one.
OK, then, let's compare her behavior to that of Bono - he managed to overcome political prejudices to lobby such people as Bush directly - and with results. She tears up pictures of the Pope.
What happened is that one of them grew up and the other one wants to play-act being a "priest" and a death counselor and a bug exterminator. One of them is an adult and the other a self-pitying adolescent at age 37. Bono wouldn't kick anybody's ass for heckling him, he just doesn't care.
You have your choice, shinehead: get heckled or get boot-stomped in the jaw.
Decide now. Too late!
Shut your protest-singing, drunk irish ass and crawl back in your bottle.
BWWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
What is her position on the Irish national anthem, The Soldier's Song? Doesn't that sound kinda militaristic?
I suppose that, unlike us, the Irish are "people of color."
Certifiable and heartless.
Frankly, if you could imagine hair on her she would be quite pretty.
The greatest gift my great great grandfather gave the family was to move out of that silly place.
Sinead O'Bonehead alert
I did my part.
Perhaps a round of sincere apologies might help her cause. Somehow I don't think whining is going to cut it.
Please accept my apology - BALDY!
Hey Don, don't hold back, tell us how you really feel...
Three things.
(1) If you spend a decade acting like a crazy moron, don't be surprised that people think you are a crazy moron,
(2) If you show disrespect for people's beliefs, by becoming a quasi-Catholic priestess and then immediately going on to become an advocate for euthanasia, when you tear up pictures of the Pope on TV, don't be surprised if Catholics think you are hostile to them, and
(3) If you are getting too much publicity, fire your publicist.
How Cruel! (HAR HAR)
Well, IF she doesn't want to be scrutinized in public, then she should cease being a public figure!
>>Yeah, her pop music is awful but her singing of traditional Irish music is very good.<<
Oh! Well I didn't know that!
When I first heard of her, I thought she would never make it in the Entertainment business. Turns out, she is very entertaining.
So she takes out a full page ad that basically says, "Stop Noticing Me!!!"
Makes sense.
Oh, for Pet's sake, Sinead! Grow some hair!
Maybe she's a whack job because of a bad childhood, perhaps?
/armchair psychology mode
Hey dum dum O'Conner, if you act like a fool, you will get treated like one.
OK, let...me...say..it...slower...this...time...
Sheesh!
HAHAHA very witty
She is and always was a complete jerk..She made her bed, now she has to sleep in it..Poor baby ..too bad
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.