Sinéad O’Connor says she has no regrets, and that includes her notorious 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live during which she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.
In her new memoir, Rememberings, the iconic Irish singer, 54, writes about her intentions behind the shocking incident, which resulted in her being banned from NBC for life.
In an excerpt published in Rolling Stone, O’Connor explains that the catalyst for the incident stemmed from her own anger of growing up in an unhappy home in Ireland. When her mother passed away, she discovered a photograph of the pope from his 1979 visit to her home country. During the appearance, the pope “made a show” of telling the “young people of Ireland” that he “loves” them.
“What a load of claptrap. Nobody loved us. Not even God,” writes O’Connor. “Even our mothers and fathers couldn’t stand us.”
She continues, “My intention had always been to destroy my mother’s photo of the pope. 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*** about the children of Ireland.”
