(CNN) Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has died.
RTE, Ireland’s Public Broadcaster, confirmed her death on Wednesday.
Sinead O’Connor obliterated the image of the female music star in the late 1980s with a shaved head, stirring performances and a mouthful of controversial opinions.
O’Connor topped the music charts in 1990 with her version of “Nothing Compares to You” written by Prince. She won MTV’s video of the year award. Rolling Stone named her Artist of the Year in 1991. She earned four Grammy nominations for the song and the album it was on.
But accolades and awards seemed to mean nothing compared to O’Connor’s drive to provoke thought.
When O’Connor ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II on national television, backlash reverberated around the globe.
Weeks later, a New York crowd booed the singer loudly and incessantly when she took her turn on stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert.
O’Connor repeatedly defended herself, calling herself Catholic and spiritual. And in 1999, she became the first priestess of a dissident Roman Catholic group.
When the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal exploded, O’Connor called for the Pope to tell the truth.
“We have the documents and we have the proof that tell us that we are being lied to, and we are being lied to by people who are supposed to represent Jesus Christ,” she said.
O’Connor lashed out at other celebrities, once called U2’s music “bombastic,” started a war of words with Miley Cyrus when O’Connor publicly urged the young performer not to “let the music business make a prostitute of you” and accused Arsenio Hall of being a drug supplier for Prince after the superstar’s death.
O’Connor’s personal life was tabloid fodder of divorce and custody battles. The singer married four times and was a mother to four children.
Tormented and talented, O’Connor attempted suicide in the late 1990s.
In early 2022, she checked into a hospital while grieving the death of her third son, Shane.
At 51, O’Connor converted to Islam, covering her trademark shaved head with a hijab. But she continued performing her music reflecting a lifetime of struggles.
O’Connor was 56 years old.
No details or cause of death was immediately available.
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