Phoebe Bridgers shares emotional tribute to Sinéad O’Connor
Boygenius star Phoebe Bridgers has penned an emotional tribute to the late Sinéad O’Connor and revealed she once shaved her head to look like the late Irish singer.
Last week, O’Connor’s death was confirmed by the Metropolitan Police after they found her unresponsive at her London residence. She was aged 56. Flurries of tributes have poured in from the musical world, including from Morrissey, Tim Burgess and many more. Now, Bridgers has explained how the late artist was pivotal to her.
“I never met or saw Sinéad live, unfortunately. When I heard she died, I was heartbroken. It reminded me of that one year, 2016, when everyone was dying, like Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. I thought, “There’s a hero I won’t meet.” When Sinéad died, it hit me the same way,” she began the tribute by saying (via Rolling Stone).
Looking back on her discovery of O’Connor, Bridgers recalled: “I probably first heard her thanks to my mom, who had — and still has — the coolest music tastes. Even before I heard Sinéad’s music, I knew she was a revolutionary. I was obsessed with her and the “Nothing Compares 2 U” video. I even had a very, very short-shaved head in high school. I definitely shaved it for her. I have the worst-shaped head, so there weren’t many people I would have shaved my head for.”
The singer, who often uses her platform to spread a political message, said elsewhere in the passage: “If your entryway into politics or standing for something is because you want to be awesome like Sinéad O’Connor, then great. She embodied what it means to be a musician and stand for something. Maybe it’s the internet, but in today’s landscape, people are told what is kosher to believe in and they just do that or the bare minimum. She was not like that at all.
Bridgers powerfully concluded: “She made me feel like I was allowed to stand for things. It’s still hard, but I feel so lucky to be in a landscape where I can feel validated and my beliefs are taken seriously. And that world exists because of Sinéad’s sacrifice.”
Earlier this week, Lily Allen revealed she was “incensed” at people paying tribute to the Irish singer “who would never in a million years align themselves with anybody who stood for something”. She said on Twitter: “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,”
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.”
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