Sinéad O’Connor Estate Orders Trump to Quit Using Her Music “Immediately”
Sinéad O’Connor has a posthumous message: Fuck Donald Trump.
On Monday, the Irish musician’s estate issued a missive to the GOP front-runner, demanding that Trump never again use her music after he featured her breakout hit, a cover of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” during rallies in Maryland and North Carolina over the weekend.
“Throughout her life, it is well known that Sinéad O’Connor lived by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness, and decency towards her fellow human beings,” read a joint statement issued by O’Connor’s estate and her longtime label, Chrysalis Records. “It was with outrage therefore that we learned that Donald Trump has been using her iconic performance of Nothing Compares 2 U at his political rallies.”
“It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil,’” they continued.
“As the guardians of her legacy, we demand that Donald Trump and his associates desist from using her music immediately.”
O’Connor rose to superstardom for her dynamic, imposing voice, which she wielded to attack oppressive systems like sexism, racism, and war. But the former Christian singer threw all of her commercial success away in order to draw attention to circulating rumors of rampant child abuse within the Catholic Church (which, years later, would prove to be true). During a Saturday Night Live performance in October 1992, O’Connor tore a picture of Pope John Paul II after singing a rendition of Bob Marley’s song “War.” Two weeks later, she was booed off the stage during a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden, after which she retreated from public life.
O’Connor passed away on July 26 from natural causes, according to a coroner’s report. She had spent the last year and a half of her life grief-stricken after her 17-year-old son Shane committed suicide, canceling the release of her next album and her scheduled performances.
She’s not the only musician to want to keep their work far and away from the GOP front-runner. In fact, there’s a long list of artists who have peeled their rights away from Trump, including The Beatles, Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Guns N’ Roses, Leonard Cohen, Queen, Prince, Pharrell, The Rolling Stones, The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Rihanna, Neil Young, Linkin Park, the late Tom Petty, and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler.
