Trailblazer Sinéad O’Connor died from natural causes according to a coroner’s report.
She was just 56-years-old. According to reports she was found at a home in Herne Hill, London, when authorities were called. Police did not believe her death was suspicious.
“This is to confirm that Ms O’Connor died of natural causes,” a representative for Southwark Coroners Court has revealed.
“The coroner has therefore ceased their involvement in her death.”
Police said O’Connor was “pronounced dead at the scene” after being found “unresponsive” at her London home at around 11 a.m. on July 26th.
O’Connor’s family said in a statement at the time.. “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.”
Her tragic passing came just weeks after she moved into her new London home and discussed plans for new music and a tour.
However more poignantly her passing also came 18 months after her 17-year-old son, Shane, died by suicide in January 2022.
“I’ve decided to follow my son. There is no point living without him,” O’Connor eerily tweeted a day after Shane’s body was found. She was hospitalised at the point.
O’Connor’s management team released a statement in June 2022 announcing she was cancelling all gigs and would not perform that year.
O’Connor paid tribute to Shane in her final tweet, on July 17.
“Been living as undead night creature since. He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul. We were one soul in two halves. He was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally. I am lost in the bardo without him”.
On The Oprah Winfrey Show in October 2007, she shared that she had attempted suicide on her 33rd birthday, in 1999.
She told Winfrey that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but years later, after several “second opinions,” she revealed that was a misdiagnosis.
She told another U.S. broadcaster Dr. Phil in 2017 that a radical hysterectomy in 2015 caused her to “lose” her mind and contemplate suicide.
The one time Bray resident further claimed in 2021 that she had been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.
She posted a 12-minute Facebook video in August 2017 explaining that she had felt alone since losing custody of Shane in 2013 and had been suicidal for the previous two years.
The Drink Before the War singer claimed in the video that her psychiatrist was “about the only f**ing thing keeping me alive at the moment.”
O’Connor burst onto the music scene in 1987 with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra.
The outspoken artist became an international star in 1990 with her haunting power ballad Nothing Compares 2 U,” written by Prince.
The song’s music video, which featured a close-up of a tearful O’Connor against a black background, became one of the most recognizable clips of the decade.
O’Connor would produce ten studio albums. In October 1992, the Grammy winner infamously turned her Saturday Night Live musical performance into a protest.
While performing an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s War, O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II to raise awareness of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.
O’Connor’s own tragic life was heavily referenced by the childhood abuse received at the hands of her mother, Marie O’Grady.
In her 2021 memoir Rememberings, O’Connor revealed that the intent of her SNL performance was “to destroy my mother’s photo of the pope.” “It represented lies and liars and abuse. The type of people who kept these things were devils like my mother.”
O’Connor says she visited her mother’s home after her 1985 death and “took down from her bedroom wall the only photo she ever had up there, which was of Pope John Paul II.”
O’Connor had four brief marriages and three children, Jake, Roisin, Yeshua and Shane.
