Sinead O’Connor despatched texts ‘laden with despair’ to Bob Geldof in weeks earlier than her loss of life

Sinead O’Connor despatched textual content messages “laden with desperation, despair and sorrow” to Bob Geldof within the weeks earlier than her loss of life, The Boomtown Rats frontman has advised a pageant crowd.

He devoted the band’s efficiency at Cavan Calling in Ireland to O’Connor, who died at her home in southeast London last week, aged 56.

As a fellow Irish singer, Geldof, 71, mentioned he grew up together with her household and lived simply “down the road” from her.

He advised the gang: “Many, many times Sinead was full of a terrible loneliness and a terrible despair. She was a very good friend of mine. We are talking right up to a couple of weeks ago.

“Some of the texts had been laden with desperation and despair and sorrow and a few had been ecstatically comfortable. And she was like that.”

Best known for her 1990 song Nothing Compares 2 U, O’Connor was recognized for her outspoken views on topics resembling faith, conflict and feminism.

She infamously tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992 to protest towards abuse within the Catholic Church.

Geldof mentioned: “She tore up the picture of the Pope because she saw me tearing up a picture of John Travolta on Top Of The Pops.

“It was a bit extra excessive than tearing up f****** disco – tearing up the Vatican is a complete different factor – however extra right truly, I ought to’ve completed it.”

Ahead of the Irish live performance, Geldof advised Aine Duffy, for Irish Web TV, that the band had been “all very sad” following O’Connor’s loss of life and could be taking part in a few of their oldest tracks as O’Connor had been a “big Rats fan”, attending most of the band’s gigs as a younger woman.

He mentioned: “Sinead lived down the road from me and Gary, the guitar player in the band who died about six or seven months ago, we are quite literally down the road.

“So, we have recognized that woman most of her life, actually. She was a giant Rats fan… so, to be sincere with you, that is why we’re doing very early stuff and we dedicate this gig to her, it is the one factor we will do as musicians.

“We were friends all the way through. She was signed to the same little record label we were signed to, by the same guy, had the same manager and stuff like that so there’s a big connection there.”

Click to subscribe to Backstage wherever you get your podcasts

O’Connor started taking part in on the streets of Dublin utilizing a guitar given to her by a nun and launched her debut album The Lion and the Cobra in 1987. Her final album – I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss – got here out in 2014.

In 2021 O’Connor cancelled numerous gigs after asserting she was coming into a one-year programme for trauma and dependancy.

The following yr her 17-year-old son Shane took his personal life.

Geldof, who has been within the public eye since The Boomtown Rats fashioned within the mid-70s, has additionally skilled tragedy in his life, with the loss of life of his ex-wife Paula Yates from a heroin overdose in 2000 echoed 14 years later by the loss of life of his 25-year-old daughter Peaches.