SINEAD O’Connor had a fractured relationship with her mother – but told how she used her voice to “soothe” her.
The iconic musician details the torment she suffered during her childhood at the hands of her “abusive” mother – who she also labeled as “a beast” and “the devil”.
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Tragic Sinead was found dead at her London apartment on Wednesday morning.
Cops said her death “is not being treated as suspicious”, with the local coroner saying it may take “several weeks” before the results of an autopsy are revealed.
Nothing Compares, recorded in 2019 by Belfast-born documentary-maker Kathryn Ferguson, offers a glimpse into the life of the humble star.
The backbone of the film is made up of a three-hour interview in which Sinead talked uninterrupted for 97 minutes.
Reminding her troubled childhood, the star recalled the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of her late mother, Marie.
She also remembered being made to sleep in the garden for several weeks when she was just eight, and being refused back into the house despite her pleas.
Sinead said: “My mother was a beast. I was able to soothe her with my voice. I was able to use my voice to make the devil sleep.”
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“My mother was a very violent woman, not a healthy woman at all. She was physically, verbally, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally abusive.”
“One of the very traumatic things that happened to me when I was growing up was that my mother had me living in the garden, when I was eight and a half, 24-7, for a week or two.
‘I’m out in the garden in the dark – I still hate dusk to this day – and I’ll be looking up at the only window on the side of the house where she’d have a light on and I’d be screaming, begging her to let me in, and she wouldn’t, the light would go off, and the house would go dark.”
Sinead, 56, was the third of five children born to Marie and John O’Connor who divorced when she was eight.
She lived with her mother from the ages of eight to thirteen, and claimed that her mother subjected to various forms of abuse during this period.
CUSTODY
Her father got custody of Sinead when she was 13.
On Thursday, hundreds of people congregated at the London Irish Centre, in North London, for an evening celebrating the Nothing Compares 2 U singer’s life and music on Thursday.
Famous faces including actress Sharon Horgan and DJ Annie Mac attended the emotional send-off for one of Ireland’s greatest talents.
Attendees were treated to a reading of one of Sinead’s letters by actress Lisa Dwan, as well as a rendition of Take Me To Church, led by comedian Aisling Bea.
Dozens of people also gathered outside the Wall of Fame in Dublin to pay their respects to the singer’s “beautiful soul”.
Fans spoke about the influence Sinead’s music had on their lives, and called for her death to “light an absolute fire under all of us” to tackle how mental health and children are treated in Ireland.
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