Lily Allen furious at “spineless” tributes to Sinéad O’Connor
Following the death of Sinéad O’Connor last week, Lily Allen has said she is “incensed” by the “spineless” tributes posted to the Irish musician. Allen suggested some of those penning praises of the Irish musician and activist should have defended her in life.
The ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ singer died at the age of 56 after being found unresponsive at her London home, which prompted tributes from the likes of Russell Crowe, Massive Attack, Garbage, Billy Corgan and Ice-T. Now, Lily Allen has had her say on what she perceives to be the hypocrisy behind the outpouring of respect.
“It’s hard not to feel incensed when there are so many people posting about Sinead and how fearless she was, people who would never in a million years align themselves with anybody who stood for something or had anything remotely controversial to say,” Allen wrote in a tweet at the weekend. She continued: “It’s so spineless. If you can’t stand up for people in life don’t do it in death.”
In a follow-up tweet, Allen wrote that it was “troubling” that people “seemingly felt so empathetic towards her but didn’t feel that they could show it or express it for some reason. until they died.” The British musician asked: “What does that say about us?”
Allen’s comments echo former Smiths frontman Morrissey’s sentiment, who took to his website to criticise the people who “hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you”.
“She had only so much ‘self’ to give,” opened the message posted on his website. “She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them. She became crazed, yes, but uninteresting, never. She had done nothing wrong. She had proud vulnerability … and there is a certain music industry hatred for singers who don’t ‘fit in’ (this I know only too well), and they are never praised until death – when, finally, they can’t answer back”.
Morrissey described fame as a “cruel playpen,” after artists took to posting “the usual moronic labels” like ‘icon’ and ‘legend’ following her death.
After screenshots of Lily Allen’s tweets were shared across social media, the British singer has deleted her Twitter account.
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