Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard appeared to honor Sinéad O’Connor during “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” on Sunday night.
The duo, who also performed during the “Saturday Night Live” concert special two nights prior, this time performed the Prince song, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” The 1985 track was made famous by O’Connor when she recorded it for her second studio album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” in 1990.
In 1992, O’Connor performed a cover of Bob Marley’s “War” on “Saturday Night Live.” At the end of the episode, hosted by Tim Robbins, she ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II. As she threw the pieces onto the floor, she said, “Fight the real enemy.” Following the performance, she shared that she made the move as an effort to call out sexual abuse happening in the Catholic Church.
She was then banned by “Saturday Night Live,” mocked in sketches to come and slammed by the host the following week, Joe Pesci. The moment had a large impact on O’Connor’s career. Less than two weeks after the episode aired, she performed at the all-star Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York City, and was booed.
“A lot of people say or think that tearing up the pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it,” she wrote in her memoir,” Rememberings,” in 2021. “I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
In 2021, she reflected on the moment via an interview with People magazine, saying that she was “well aware there would be [backlash].”
She added, “I understood it, because we joke in Ireland or in Europe that Americans, they don’t think anything happened until it happened to them. So I totally understood. I didn’t blame anyone.”
O’Connor died in 2023 at the age of 56.
Watch Cyrus and Howard’s performance below:
From Variety US