Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3732 - The One With Tearing Up the Pope's Picture on SNL - Sinéad O'Connor
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3732 - The One With Tearing Up the Pope's Picture on SNL - Sinéad O'Connor
I have had this blog post scheduled since sometime in January when I was listening to Sinéad O'Connor's memoir Rememberings and loved what she had to say about tearing up the Pope's picture on SNL in 1992.
However, since then, just last week, the current Pope died.
I could have chosen to hold off on this post as it's hardly time sensitive in terms of being a current event.
And yet, because of the horrible actions of the Catholic church throughout history let alone in modern times, and the Pope's (all the popes) complicity in the horrors and the cover up of things like child sexual abuse by priests.
The Catholic church is a cult. It's toxic and destructive.
I make no apologies for my views or for the timing of this post.
I was watching this episode of Saturday Night Live when Sinéad O'Connor tore up the picture of the Pope.
Though I did not yet know about the sexual abuse perpetrated against children by Catholic priests and the cover up of it, I knew the long history of horrors committed by the Catholic church. "Good for her," I thought. I already admired Sinéad O'Connor immensely, and my admiration went sky-high with this action.
Not everyone agreed. She was hated and vilified by many. She was booed off the stage at Bob Dylan's birthday party at MSG soon after.
No apologies, no regrets. She takes all the abuse heaped on her because it's still nothing compared to what victims (though perhaps we should not use the word victims or even survivors) suffered at the hands of those evil priests and those who covered up what had happened.
She died too soon.
I wish she was still with us.
Here's the link to my previous Sinéad O'Connor post, which has links to most or all of my others about her.
Here's what she wrote about the SNL Pope picture incident in Rememberings:
THE DAY MY MOTHER DIED, myself and my siblings went inside her house for the first time in several years. Our own secrets to seek. Not hers. There were still broken plastic swans in the bathroom. Resolute. Long-necked. Frozen. As if nothing had happened.
I took down from her bedroom wall the only photo she ever had up there, which was of Pope John Paul II. It was taken when he visited Ireland in 1979. “Young people of Ireland,” he had said after making a show of kissing the ground at the Dublin airport like the flight had been overly frightening, “I love you.” What a load of claptrap. Nobody loved us. Not even God. Sure, even our mothers and fathers couldn’t stand us.
In 1978, Bob Geldof ripped up a photo of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta on Top of the Pops because their shit record “Summer Nights” had been number one for seven weeks and finally Geldof’s Boomtown Rats’ single “Rat Trap” had taken over.
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 shit about the children of Ireland.
I’ve woken after going to bed at six a.m. It’s one p.m. Only a few hours until camera rehearsal for SNL. I’m to perform two songs, the second of which is Bob Marley’s “War,” a cappella. The lyric is actually a speech given to the United Nations by the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in New York in 1963 about racism being the cause of all wars. But I’m gonna change a few lines to be a declaration of war against child abuse. Because I’m pissed at Terry for what he told me last night. I’m pissed he’s been using kids to run drugs.
And I’m pissed he’s gonna be dead by Monday.
It also happens I’ve been pissed off for a few weeks because I’ve been reading The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (a contrarian, blasphemous history of the early church) but also finding brief articles buried in the back pages of Irish newspapers about children who have been ravaged by priests but whose stories are not believed by the police or bishops their parents report it to. So I’ve been thinking even more of destroying my mother’s photo of JP2. And I decide tonight is the night.
I bring the photo to the NBC studio and hide it in the dressing room. At the rehearsal, when I finish singing Bob Marley’s “War,” I hold up a photo of a Brazilian street kid who was killed by cops. I ask the cameraman to zoom in on the photo during the actual show. I don’t tell him what I have in mind for later on. Everyone’s happy. A dead child far away is no one’s problem.
I know if I do this there’ll be war. But I don’t care. I know my Scripture. Nothing can touch me. I reject the world. Nobody can do a thing to me that hasn’t been done already. I can sing in the streets like I used to. It’s not like anyone will tear my throat out.
Showtime. I’m wearing a white lace dress that once belonged to Sade. I bought it at a rock ’n’ roll auction in London when I was nineteen. Paid eight hundred pounds for it. It’s beautiful. There’s a coin-size lead weight in each side of the slit at the back, to keep it straight and make it hang ladylike.
Very clever. A dress for women to behave badly in. One day maybe I will have a daughter who gets married in it.
So the show goes on. First song, “Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home,” is a dream. Plenty of people milling about backstage afterward—producers, managers, makeup artists, and fellow guests. I’m the flavor of the month. Everyone wants to talk to me. Tell me how I’m a good girl. But I know I’m an impostor.
Second song is set up beautifully. With one candle beside me and my Rasta prayer cloth tied to the microphone, I sing “War” a cappella. No one suspects a thing. But at the end, I don’t hold up the child’s picture. I hold up JP2’s photo and then rip it into pieces. I yell, “Fight the real enemy!” (I’m talking to those who are gonna kill Terry.) And I blow out the candle.
Total stunned silence in the audience. And when I walk backstage, literally not a human being is in sight. All doors have closed. Everyone has vanished. Including my own manager, who locks himself in his room for three days and unplugs his phone.
Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame. In fact, that’s why I chose the first song. “Success” was making a failure of my life. Because everyone was already calling me crazy for not acting like a pop star. For not worshipping fame. And I understand I’ve torn up the dreams of those around me. But those aren’t my dreams. No one ever asked me what my dreams were; they just got mad at me for not being who they wanted me to be. My own dream is only to keep the contract I made with God before I ever made one with the music business. And that’s a better fight than murder. I gotta get to the other side of life.
I am in my dressing room with my personal assistant, Ciara. We pack up my bags and leave the building. Outside 30 Rock, two young men are waiting for me and they throw a load of eggs at us both. But what they don’t know is myself and Ciara are able to run a hundred meters in 11.3 seconds. So we run after them when they flee. We catch up with them in some alley. They are leaning, gasping for breath, against a black fence they didn’t have the strength to climb. All we say, laughing at them, is “Hey, don’t be throwing eggs at women.” The two of them are so shocked at being chased and caught that they start laughing too, and it all ends very friendly. They straighten up and help us find a cab back to the hotel. The matter is being discussed on the news and we learn I am banned from NBC for life. This hurts me a lot less than rapes hurt those Irish children. And a lot less than Terry dying. Which happens on the following Monday anyway.
O'Connor, Sinéad. Rememberings: Scenes from My Complicated Life (p. 180). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
A LOT OF PEOPLE say or think that tearing up the pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it. I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track. I had to make my living performing live again. And that’s what I was born for. I wasn’t born to be a pop star. You have to be a good girl for that. Not be too troubled.
I wasn’t comfortable with what other people called success because it meant I had to be as others wanted me to be. After SNL I could just be me. Do what I love. Be imperfect. Be mad, even. Anything. I don’t define success as having a good name or being wealthy. I define success by whether I keep the contract contract I made with the Holy Spirit before I made one with the music business. I never signed anything that said I would be a good girl.
I have supported my four children for thirty-five years. I supported us by performing live, and I became, if I may say so, a very fine live performer. So, far from the pope episode destroying my career, it set me on a path that fit me better. I’m not a pop star. I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then. I don’t need to be number one. I don’t need to be liked. I don’t need to be welcome at the AMAs. I just need to pay my yearly overheads, get shit off my chest, and not compromise or prostitute myself spiritually.
So no. It wasn’t derailed. It was re-railed. And I feel I’ve been extremely successful as a single mother providing for her children.
O'Connor, Sinéad. Rememberings: Scenes from My Complicated Life (pp. 181-182). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Sinéad O’Connor often made headlines, but one of the more memorable instances was when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, prompting public outcry. “I knew there would be an aftermath,” she told CBC's Mark Kelley in 2010, adding that knowledge of the misconduct in the church was more commonly known in Ireland than in North America.
Sinéad O'Connor told ET why she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II during 'Saturday Night Live' in October 1992. Less than two weeks after the move made headlines, the 'Nobody Compares 2 U' singer reflected on the controversial stunt in a sit-down interview, explaining why she chose not to inform anyone at 'SNL' ahead of her performance. The Irish music icon said she was abused as a child, which led to her speak out against the Vatican on the sketch comedy series. On Wednesday, ET learned O'Connor died at the age of 56.
The Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor has died at the age of 56, her family said in a statement on Wednesday. With a stirring voice, O'Connor rose to fame in 1990 in part through her cover of Prince’s hit song "Nothing Compares 2 U," which went on to earn three Grammy nominations and put the artist at the forefront of the pop scene. She became known for working against the grain—showing off her shaved head after a record executive advised her to appear more feminine, for example, reflecting a lifelong refusal to conform to typical feminine beauty standards. She also used her platform to speak out on issues ranging from human rights to Irish politics to mental health, even when doing so jeopardized her career.
But perhaps the most memorable public statement she made came in the fall of 1992, when O'Connor ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II while performing on Saturday Night Live in an unwavering protest against child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The move sparked worldwide outrage, and assertions that O'Connor had completely ruined her future. But she stood behind her actions. "Everyone wants a pop star, see?" she wrote in her 2021 memoir, Rememberings. "But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame."
The story behind Sinead O'Connor's 1992 SNL performance
O'Connor appeared as the musical guest on SNL on Oct. 3, 1992. As planned, she sang an a cappella cover of Bob Marley's "War" for the night's closing performance. But she veered off plan at the end of the song, when she replaced some lyrics with the words "child abuse" and held up a photo of Pope John Paul II and tore it into pieces, looking straight into the camera. "Fight the real enemy," she said.
Right after, SNL producer Lorne Michaels reportedly ordered the "Applause" sign in the studio be turned off, leading to silence in the room. By this point in her career, O'Connor was known for speaking out and taking action: she had previously refused to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a show and boycotted the Grammy Awards the year she was nominated, writing a letter to the Recording Academy that the awards “acknowledge mostly the commercial side of art” and “respect mostly material gain.”
But the SNL moment took O'Connor's reputation to a new level—prompting intensely felt responses. NBC banned O'Connor from SNL for life, and the show would later wrap her actions into its own jokes. Joe Pesci, appearing as host the following Saturday, said, "If it was my show, I would have gave her such a smack." Madonna, performing that night, mocked O'Connor, ripping up a photo of Joey Buttafuoco, who earlier that year had become something of a celebrity following a high-profile scandal. A couple weeks later, O'Connor was booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden, where she performed "War" again.
Speaking with the New York Times in 2021, O'Connor said she had no regrets, though the backlash was overwhelming. "I'm not sorry I did it. It was brilliant. But it was very traumatizing. It was open season on treating me like a crazy b-tch."
How history looks back on that performance
More than 30 years since her appearance on SNL, performers using their art to speak out about politics and social issues has become the norm, to the point where many fans expect artists to use their platforms to advocate for causes. Whether she meant to or not, O'Connor helped carve a path for female artists, especially, to speak out despite the likelihood of public criticism and professional consequences. Artists from Fiona Apple to Bono have called her a hero and an inspiration.
In Rememberings, O'Connor wrote that her protest against the Catholic Church was personally clarifying—even if from the outside, it might have looked like everything was falling apart in her world. "I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career,” she wrote. “And my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
As a protest singer, leading the charts and reaching the peak of popularity was not where O'Connor wanted to be. Her goal, she maintained, was always to "force a conversation where there was a need for one."
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2505.07 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3597 days ago & DAD = 251 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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