Bob Geldof has revealed that he received text messages “of despair” from Sinéad O’Connor prior to her passing.
During a performance at the Cavan Calling festival, the Boomtown Rats frontman paid tribute to the late Nothing Compares 2 U singer who was found “unresponsive” in her South East London home by police on July 26th and was later pronounced dead at the scene.
Geldof, 71, while wearing the late Irish singer-songwriter on his t-shirt, is the latest in a series of friends and celebrities to break their silence and pay tribute to Sinéad, who was 56-years-old at the time of her passing.
The ‘I Hate Mondays‘ singer told the audience that he had been in contact with Sinéad in very recent times, and in light of the tragic news “to just keep on in the face of such tragedies.”
He added that Sinéad was a good friend of his, but acknowledged that “Some of her texts were laden with desperation and despair and sorrow and some were ecstatically happy,” lamenting that this was in her nature.
Geldof went on to praise Sinéad’s bravery in giving a voice to those without one. He referred to the 1992 SNL Live Performance in which she told viewers to “Fight the real enemy,” while ripping a picture of Pope John Paul II in an act of rebellion against the Catholic Church while performing a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘War.’
This performance was done in protest against the sexual abuse of children within the Church which resulted in Sinead being banned from SNL and chastised by the Catholic Church.
Speaking of the infamous SNL performance, Geldof went on to confess that he believed Sinéad did this following his own act of protest against “disco” whereby he tore up a picture of John Travolta on Top of The Pops.
However, he admitted to audience members at the Irish festival that what Sinéad did was far more powerful and extreme than his own actions, and told fans he wished he “had done it”.
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