Sinéad O’Connor tells sad fans that her retirement is ‘staggeringly beautiful news’
Sinéad O’Connor, the iconoclastic singer-songwriter also known as Shuhada Sadaqat and Mother Bernadette Maria, is retiring from touring and recording.
“This is to announce my retirement from touring and from working in the record business,” she wrote in a tweet Friday. “I’ve gotten older and I’m tired. So it’s time for me to hang up my nipple tassels, having truly given my all. NVDA in 2022 will be my last release. And there’ll be no more touring or promo.”
O’Connor’s 11th album, “No Veteran Dies Alone” (the “NVDA” of her tweet), is being helmed by Irish producer David Holmes and scheduled for release next year.
“Time for you now pet be good and kind to yourself ... but for goodness sake don’t be growing old prematurely or gracefully, you’ve too much sass and just as much class to be an aul Fuddy Duddy. I expect to see you gracing the cover of rolling stone on a Harley xx,” a well-wisher responded on Twitter.
O’Connor, 54, tweeted back: “Yeah, but no more pissin’ in alleys, playing in clubs that have no toilets #TooFugginOld4Dat”
After fielding a number of responses from fans mourning the announcement, O’Connor tweeted, “It’s not sad news. It’s staggeringly beautiful news. A wise warrior knows when he or she should retreat: #MeTime.”
She added, “It’s been a forty year journey. Time to put the feet up and make other dreams come true ; )”
The retirement news comes as O’Connor has been making headlines recently pegged to her memoir, “Rememberings,” prompting a reappraisal of how she’s been treated over the years.
O’Connor’s deeply personal, unapologetic and inextricably Irish blend of folk and modern musical influences scored her a gold record and Grammy nomination with her 1987 debut album, “The Lion and the Cobra.”
Despite the uncompromising nature of her work, she reached the heights of pop stardom in 1990 with the album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.” Its success was powered by her cover of the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and the album earned her a handful of Grammy nominations and a win for alternative music performance.
She has also been a lightning rod her entire career, garnering a reputation for shooting from the hip. Speaking out against the sexual abuse scandal roiling the Catholic Church, she tore up a photograph of the pope in 1992 on “Saturday Night Live,” telling the stunned audience: “Fight the real enemy.”
Before Britney, Demi or even the Dixie Chicks, Sinéad O’Connor said what she thought, did what she wanted and refused to be shut down.
In her new book, she revisits such controversies, including previous claims of a physical altercation with Prince. (For the record, O’Connor also alleged that he was a “hard drug user” and that Arsenio Hall had been his supplier; she later had to apologize for those remarks after Hall sued her.)
In her latest tweets, O’Connor says writing her memoir made her rethink some things, including how such an announcement should be made.
“Apologies if any upset caused to booking agents or promoters or managers due to my tweeting about my retirement. I guess the book made me realise I’m my own boss. I didn’t wanna wait for permission from the men, as to when I could announce it. Also, I’d had a few whiskeys : )”
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