Sinead O’Connor shaved her head to keep music industry creeps at bay.
Sinead O’Connor shaved her head to keep music industry creeps at bay
The late singer, famed for her human rights activism after she shot to fame with her career-defining cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, said she was working in the business when record label bosses were “frisky”, and chose what turned out to be her trademark look to stop them targeting her.
She said in an interview that has been unearthed since her death aged 56 on 26 July: “I got into the record business at a time when record executives were a little frisky, let’s put it that way.
“Not in a manner that they would cross a line if you said no but they would certainly try their very best.
“In some ways, you had to protect yourself straight off. You would be better to have a bag over your head really.
“But they wanted me to grow my hair really long and wear mini-skirts and all that kind of stuff because they reckoned I would look much prettier.
“So I went straight around to the barber and shaved the rest of my hair off.”
Sinead also revealed record label bosses told her to stop shaving her head and tried to persuade her to have a miscarriage
She also warned Miley Cyrus not to be “pimped” by the music industry in an open letter to the star, now 30, on her website after Miley told Rolling Stone magazine she had been inspired by Sinead’s visuals in her iconic ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ video when she made her music promo for her ‘Wrecking Ball’ hit, which saw her swinging nude from a demolition crane.
Sinead said in her note to the singer she was writing to her “in the spirit of motherliness and with love”.
She added to Miley it wasn’t “‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos” and that she was being “pimped” by the music industry.
Her letter stated: “Dear Miley, I wasn’t going to write this letter, but today I’ve been dodging phone calls from various newspapers who wished me to remark upon your having said in Rolling Stone your ‘Wrecking Ball’ video was designed to be similar to the one for ‘Nothing Compares’… So this is what I need to say … And it is said in the spirit of motherliness and with love.
“I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether it’s the music business or yourself doing the pimping.”
She added in the note: “The music business doesn’t give a s*** about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted … and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.
None of the men ogling you give a s*** about you either, do not be fooled.”
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