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Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Throwback video showing moment Sinéad O’Connor ripped off Pope John Paul II picture at end of SNL 1992 performance RESURFACED.
Singer Sinead O’Connor, whose death was announced earlier on Wednesday, once sparked global outrage for tearing up a photograph of the Pope on live television.
O’Connor, who shot to stardom across the world in 1990 with her heartrending cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U, was performing on Saturday Night Live on October 1992 when she pulled the stunt.
As O’Connor detailed in her 2021 memoir Rememberings, the photo in question came from her mother’s house, and she removed it from the wall after her mother passed away.
“My intention had always been to destroy my mother’s photo of the pope,” she wrote. “It represented lies and liars and abuse. The type of people who kept these things were devils like my mother. I never knew when or where or how I would destroy it, but destroy it I would when the right moment came. And with that in mind, I carefully brought it everywhere I lived from that day forward. Because nobody ever gave a [s—t] about the children of Ireland.”
The artist sang the final refrain ‘And we know we shall win/As we are confident in the victory/Of good over evil,’ then held up a picture of Pope John Paul II and tore it to pieces right in front of the single camera.
O’Connor reiterated ‘fight the enemy’ while starring down the barrel of the camera before blowing out the surrounding candles on stage and walked off. O’Connor had reportedly told NBC, who hosted the show, that she would hold up a picture of a starving child and make a plea to protect the world’s most vulnerable kids.
However, the singer instead replaced the photograph in order to protest the ongoing issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, long before such allegations were widely reported.
The performer recalled in her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, the eerie silence she was greeted with after walking off stage: ‘When I walk backstage, literally not a human being is in sight’ she wrote.
‘All doors have closed. Everyone has vanished. Including my own manager, who locks himself in his room for three days and unplugs his phone.’
The network was inundated with complaints and calls for days about the broadcast.
SNL’s show creator Lorne Michaels allowed O’Connor back on stage at the end of the program to wave goodnight to the audience.
He later added that O’Connor’s action was ‘the bravest possible thing she could do.’ During O’Connor’s SNL dress rehearsal, she did not show that photo, but instead held up “a photo of a Brazilian street kid who was killed by cops,” she continued, adding that no one at SNL protested her plan to hold up the child’s photo during her actual performance.
“No one suspects a thing. But at the end, I don’t hold up the child’s picture,” she said. “I hold up JP2’s photo and then rip it into pieces… Total stunned silence in the audience. And when I walk backstage, literally not a human being is in sight. All doors have closed. Everyone has vanished. Including my own manager, who locks himself in his room for three days and unplugs his phone.”
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