Sinead O'Connor's final days as she moved to London and gave her final interview
Sinéad O'Connor's final days included a heartbreaking interview, grieving her son and a move to London.
The Irish singer was found unresponsive at her home in Lambeth, South London, on the morning of July 26. The Nothing Compares 2 U hitmaker's family shared the news of her death aged 56, sparking an outpouring of tributes from heartbroken fans and celebrities.
Her neighbour's have since shared how she moved back to London after 23 years in an effort to feel 'less lonely'. Sinéad's final social media post also showed her grieving her son Shane, after his death last year.
The singer also gave a heartbreaking final interview as part of a documentary already airing this weekend as she recalls harrowing moments of her life.
Lonely move to London
Sinead shared a video in her new London flatSinéad had moved to the capital city just weeks before her death in an effort to fell "less lonely", according to her neighbours. The Irish singer moved back to the city after 23 years away in July.
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Since her death, Sinéad's neighbours have spoken out about their interactions with the singer, admitting they only realised the truth extent of her fame following Wednesday's tragedy. She is believed to have moved into the Lambeth penthouse apartment earlier this month.
According toThe Times,Sinéad told her neighbours she had moved to the capital to feel less lonely. Pushpakumara Moragamana, 57, who lived opposite the singer recalled O’Connor smoking outside the building and discussing religion, mental health, and the death of her son Shane aged 17.
Mr Moragamana said they spoke regularly, and remembered an emotional conversation in which the Nothing Compares 2 U star said she felt “devastated and depressed” over the loss of her son.
Grieving her son
Sinead O'Connor with her son ShaneSinéad's second youngest son Shane Lunny died by suicide at the age of 17 in 2022. In an interview before he tragically took his own life, Sinead revealed Shane had plans to follow in her footsteps and become a musician.
In a heartbreaking tweet, she penned: "My beautiful son, Nevi’im Nesta Ali Shane O’Connor, the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God. May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much. Please be at peace." The confirmation of his death in January last year came days after police had launched an appeal to help find him.
Paying tribute at the time of Shane’s death, devastated Sinead called him her “blue-eyed baby” adding: “You will always be my light. We will always be together. No boundary can separate us.”
Sinead later confirmed her son died by suicide. He was the son of Sinead and musician Donal Lunny. The couple split shortly after Shane's birth in 2014. Just days before her death, Sinéad posted a tour of her flat. In the clip, she critiqued her appearance and said: "You know with your kid unfortunately passing away it isn't good for ones body or soul to be fair."
Heartbreaking last interview
The singer recalls her fame and childhood in her final interview (Redferns via Getty Images)In a documentary set to air this weekend before Sinéad's tragic death, Nothing Compares was to be an intimate portrait of a living legend. The Sky programme will now pay homage to the singer and her remarkable life.
In the programme, Sinéad admitted fame was the last thing she was after. “There was no therapy when I was growing up, so the reason I got into music was therapy,” she said. “Which is why it was was such a shock for me to become a pop star. It’s not what I wanted. I just wanted to scream.”
“Everybody in music has a story in terms of their upbringing, or where they came from or what they went through,” the singer said. “You know there is something they need to get off their chest, and perhaps we all need a bit of love and affection that we didn’t get anywhere else, but we get by making music.”
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“My mother was a very violent woman, not a healthy woman, she was physically, verbally, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally abusive. My mother was a beast. And I was able to soothe her with my voice. I was able to use my voice to make the devil fall asleep.”
She recalled: “The first song that I wrote was called ‘Take my hand’. It was a result of a punishment the nun meted out to me one day. The nun could be terribly kind, but she could also be terribly cruel as well.
“When I was was attached to a Magdalene Laundry. She sent me to sleep in the hospice part of the laundry as punishment to remind me that if I didn’t behave myself, I was going to end up like these women. There were no nuns and the poor ancient women were lying on their beds calling out for nurses all night that never came. It was awful. I didn’t know what to do, and obviously I was terrified.”
Sinead had used her childhood experiences in her songwriting, inducing on her debut single Troy, from her first album The Lion and the Cobra in 1987. She explained: “One of the very traumatic things that happened to me growing up was that my mother had me living in the garden.
"When I was eight and a half, I lived in the garden 24/7 for a week or two. I’m talking in that song about that experience. I’m out in the garden in the f***ing dark and when it’s coming to dusk - I still hate dusk to this day. And I’d be looking up at the only window at the side of the house where she’d have a light on and I’d be screaming, begging her to let me in. And she wouldn’t let me in. The light would go off. The house go dark.”
Her mother was also the focus of her most famous song, the breathtaking cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U, along with the iconic video in which she cries as she sings. She revealed: “I didn’t know I was going to cry singing it. I didn’t cry in the studio. It was just because there was a big eye on me in the form of a camera.
“Every time I sing the song, I think of my mother. I never stopped crying for my mother for, Jesus. I couldn’t face being in Ireland for 13 years. It took me I would say, 25 years to stop crying. So yeah, I was thinking of her. And I suppose my subconscious was thinking of that little girl that sat in the garden.”
Far from regretting taking the controversial stand, Sinead said she was proud of what she did. She said: “I regret that people treated me like shit. And I regret that I was so wounded already that that really, really killed me and hurt me. They all thought that I should be made a mockery of for throwing my career down the drain. I never set out to be a pop star. It didn’t suit me being a pop star.
"So I didn’t throw away any f***ing career that I wanted. It didn’t change my attitude. I wasn’t sorry. I didn’t regret it. It was the proudest thing I’ve ever done, as an artist. They broke my heart and they killed me. But I didn’t die. They tried to bury me. They didn’t realise I was a seed.”
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