Sinéad O’Connor Likens U2 to Terrorists for iTunes Album Release

Sinead O Connor. Photo: Purple PR

Sinéad O’Connor wishes her countrymen in U2 had just put out their latest album, Songs of Innocence, rather than pushing it onto people involuntarily. “What they did with iTunes was a badly judged move,” the singer recently told The Daily Mail. “There was something almost terrorist about it. I’m really not a U2 fan but it wasn’t at all kosher invading people’s lives like that. It was bad management.”

O’Connor participated in the interview ostensibly to promote her involvement in Band Aid 30, an update of the charity recording project Band Aid, which recorded “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1984. Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof originally started Band Aid to raise money for people affected by famine; Band Aid 30 will raise money to fight Ebola in west Africa. (U2 frontman Bono is also one of the singers who participated in Band Aid 30.)

“I’m involved for one reason alone, and that’s because I love Bob,” O’Connor said in the interview. “If he ever asked me to mop his kitchen floor I would, willingly.”

Elsewhere in the interview, though, the singer was less than charitable with her opinions of other musicians. She revisited her comments about Miley Cyrus from last year, when she told the singer not to prostitute herself and was rebuffed by the young pop star who compared her to beleaguered actress Amanda Bynes. “If [Miley] wants to stuff dollars down her throat and wear next to nothing ”“ fine,” O’Connor told the Daily Mail. “But not in an environment where minors are going to be exposed to it. There’s no excuse for endorsing this type of reckless behavior because that leads to child sex trafficking and ultimately the deaths of children.”

Similarly, she chastised Lady Gaga for inviting her fans to “simulate masturbation.” “What kind of person does that?” O’Connor asked.

She even targeted Prince, who wrote her breakout single “Nothing Compares 2 U,” calling him a “frightening person.” O’Connor said that she’d gotten into a fight with the songwriter the last time she’d seen him in the early Nineties. “The row happened because he summoned me to his house to tell me that he didn’t like me swearing in my interviews,” she said. “I told him to go fuck himself…and it all went downhill from there.”

Despite her penchant for gossip, though, the singer previewed her memoirs ”“ which she is currently writing ”“ by saying they’d be less salacious than she’d initially hinted they would be, as she’d “sensibly forgotten 99.999 percent of anyone I ever slept with anyway!” Instead, she said, “I’m making the memoir funny.”

Earlier this year, O’Connor put out her 10th studio album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss. “When a little boy asserts himself, he’s called a ‘leader,'” she said in June. “Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded ‘bossy,’ Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys ”“ a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead.”