Morrissey Calls Tributes To Late Singer Sinéad O’Connor ‘Moronic’

Morrissey accused the music world of hypocrisy for celebrating Sinéad O’Connor after years of the industry ostracizing her.

The often-controversial English singer responded to news of O’Connor’s death in a Wednesday post to his website, where he called fawning tributes of the late artist “moronic” and disingenuous.

“The cruel playpen of fame gushes with praise for Sinead today … with the usual moronic labels of ‘icon’ and ‘legend,’” he wrote.

“You praise her now ONLY because it is too late,” Morrissey said of the Irish singer, who was vocal about her mental health struggles through the years. “You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you.”

He criticized music CEOs for “queuing up” to call O’Connor a “feminist icon” while accusing “15 minute celebrities and goblins of “talk[ing] Sinead into giving up.”

O’Connor’s cause of death has not been revealed, but authorities said they found nothing “suspicious” in the singer’s home where she was found dead in a statement to press on Thursday.

Morrissey performs at the 2015 Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware.

Comparing the singer to other female artists who died young, The Smiths frontman asked, “Why is ANYBODY surprised that Sinead O’Connor is dead? Who cared enough to save Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holiday?”

“Where do you go when death can be the best outcome?” he went on. “Was this music madness worth Sinead’s life? No, it wasn’t.”

“She was a challenge, and she couldn’t be boxed-up, and she had the courage to speak when everyone else stayed safely silent,” the “This Charming Man” singer wrote. “She was harassed simply for being herself. Her eyes finally closed in search of a soul she could call her own.”

Morrissey then called the surge of praise for O’Connor “insultingly stupid” when “last week words far more cruel and dismissive would have done.”

“Tomorrow the fawning fops flip back to their online shitposts and their cosy Cancer Culture and their moral superiority and their obituaries of parroted vomit,” Morrissey, an outspoken critic of “cancel culture,” continued. “All of which will catch you lying on days like today … when Sinead doesn’t need your sterile slop.”

O’Connor’s family announced her death in a statement on Wednesday, sharing “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”

The singer, who is widely known for her 1990 Prince cover “Nothing Compares 2 U,” faced intense public scrutiny during her career.

A frequent critic of the Catholic church, O’Connor often spoke about surviving abuse from her mother and the clergy at the church-run school she attended as a teen.

O’Connor converted to Islam in 2018, after which she changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat.

Read Morrissey’s full statement here.