www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=6325890Sinead O'Connor Pleads for Privacy -- in an Ad
Fri Sep 24, 2004 07:02 AM ET
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Maverick Irish pop star Sinead O'Connor asked the media to leave her alone on Friday -- by taking out a full-page advert in a national newspaper.
The shaven-headed star, who said last year she was retiring from the music business, was responding to an article written earlier this week about her "latest wacky" campaign to rid the country of head lice.
"I have been the whipping post of Ireland's media for 20 years," wrote O'Connor, who once said she was a lesbian, married a man shortly afterwards, and unleashed a flood of criticism when she ripped up a photo of the Pope on television.
"And what have I done to deserve these lashings? I have not behaved the way a woman is supposed to behave," she said in the advert, which runs to more than 2,000 words. "If ye think I am so ridiculous why do ye give me any attention?"
O'Connor said she used her singing as a way to cope with a traumatic childhood and abusive mother and appealed for people's understanding.
"Before God let me swear to you that if I or any of us were to tell you what we went through this country would cry for a month. To know that my brothers and sister survived, makes me proud of us all."
O'Connor, ordained as a priest by the leader of a quasi-Catholic religious sect in Ireland, said she wanted to be left alone to "sing and work and try to just do some good in this world."
"Please, I just want to be a little old lady now, and not be all controversial and not be bashed and called crazy and laughed at when I open my mouth to sing or speak."