{"id":20309,"date":"2025-08-24T14:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/20309\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T14:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:01:07","slug":"lorne-michaels-would-have-invited-sinead-oconnor-to-sing-nothing-compares-2-u-at-snl50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/20309\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorne Michaels would have invited Sin\u00e9ad O’Connor to sing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ at SNL50"},"content":{"rendered":"

SNL<\/a> creator Lorne Michaels has said he would have invited Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor<\/a> to sing \u2018Nothing Compares 2 U\u2019 for the show\u2019s 50th anniversary.<\/p>\n

The late singer was responsible for one of the most controversial live performances in the show\u2019s history in 1992 when she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II<\/a> during a rendition of Bob Marley<\/a>\u2019s \u2018War\u2019. Protesting the Catholic Church by switching the song\u2019s lyrics to reference child abuse, she threw the pieces of the photo to the floor and said, \u201cfight the real enemy\u201d.<\/p>\n

It proved to be an incendiary moment, triggering hundreds of complaints, and O\u2019Connor was never invited to appear on SNL again. She became the subject of major press attention and two weeks later, she was booed at a Bob Dylan<\/a> tribute show at Madison Square Garden. She was, however, named as the most influential woman of 1992 by Time magazine.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor later wrote in her 2021 memoir Rememberings that she did not regret the performance, arguing that it was more important to be a protest singer than a pop star.<\/p>\n

SNL mocked O\u2019Connor in subsequent episodes, with Madonna<\/a> tearing up a photo of sex offender Joey Buttafucco, who she called \u201cthe real enemy\u201d, and Joe Pesci saying in his monologue that he would like to grab O\u2019Connor \u201cby the eyebrows\u201d and give her \u201csuch a smack\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michaels has also been critical of the performance in the past, telling Spin<\/a> in 1993 that he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the incident and saying \u201cit was dishonest because she didn\u2019t tell us she was going to do it\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with Puck News<\/a>, however, Michaels indicated that he would have invited O\u2019Connor to be part of the 50th anniversary celebrations earlier this year if it were possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she were still alive, I would have asked her to sing that song,\u201d he said, referencing her chart-topping cover of Prince<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Nothing Compares 2 U\u2019, which ended up being performed by Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard on the show.<\/p>\n

The Irish singer\u00a0passed away on July 26, 2023, aged 56<\/a>. Her\u00a0cause of death was later revealed to be asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)<\/a>. She was\u00a0laid to rest at a ceremony in the Irish town of Bray<\/a>, with\u00a0Bob Geldof<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bono<\/a>\u00a0among those paying tribute at her funeral.<\/p>\n

An O\u2019Connor biopic is reportedly in the works<\/a>, with Irish production company ie: entertainment and BBC Film said to be involved, and a script from Irish writer Stacey Gregg.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will look to tell the story of how one young woman from Dublin took on the world, examining how her global fame may have been built on her talent, but her name became synonymous with her efforts to draw attention to the crimes committed by the Catholic Church and the Irish state,\u201d a report from Variety claimed.<\/p>\n

Dua Lipa covered \u2018Nothing Compares 2 U\u2019 in Dublin\u2019s Aviva Stadium this summer<\/a>, describing O\u2019Connor as an \u201cIrish legend\u201d, while Chappell Roan dedicated her BRIT Award to the singer in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SNL creator Lorne Michaels has said he would have invited Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor to sing \u2018Nothing Compares 2 U\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,17,4513],"class_list":{"0":"post-20309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-pop"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}