Sinéad O’Connor’s Net Worth Includes Millions From ‘Nothing Compared 2 U’
As one of the most successful alternative rock singers in music history, it’s understandable why there’s so much interest in Sinéad O’Connor’s net worth and how much she made from her decades-long career before her sudden and tragic death.
O’Connor was born as Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor on December 8, 1966, in Dublin, Ireland. She released her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, in 1987. Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, was released in 1990 and became her most successful LP to date, selling more than seven million copies worldwide. The album’s lead single, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” was named the #1 World Single at the first-ever Billboard Music Awards in 1990. O’Connor went on to release 10 studio albums, including certified-gold releases like 1992’s Am I Not Your Girl?, 1994’s Universal Mother, 2000’s Faith and George, and 2005’s Throw Down Your Arms.
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Rememberings by Sinead O’Connor
$15
In an interview with The Guardian in 2017, O’Connor responded to claims she “destroyed” her career by tearing up a picture of the Pope on a television show in 1992. “A lot of people say, ‘You destroyed your career by tearing up a picture of the pope'” she said. “But I define success differently in this spiritually bereft business. To me, it’s ‘Can I be myself?’ I could stand in the street and sing and get enough to pay the bills. I don’t need millions of dollars. That was why I tore up the pope’s picture – I knew I had enough money that I didn’t have to marry a man with a very small penis to get the bills paid. I don’t want any man to have control over me. And that is success.”
After more than 30 years in the music industry. O’Connor died on July 26, 2023. She was 56 years old. Her family confirmed her death in a statement at the time. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” the statement read.
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Since her death, fans across the world have been remembering O’Connor and her contributions to the rock and folk music industry. Read on for what to know about Sinéad O’Connor’s net worth at the time of her death.
What was Sinéad O’Connor’s net worth?
What was Sinéad O’Connor’s net worth? Sinéad O’Connor’s net worth was $500,000 at the time of her death, according to Celebrity Net Worth. However, in 2021, several Irish publications reported that O’Connor was worth £4 million, according to The Daily Mail. The newspaper reported that the majority of O’Connor’s earnings came from her 1990 song “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Though she had to give a percentage of her income for the song, known as mechanical royalties, to Prince, O’Connor kept most of the money.
O’Connor revealed in a 12-minute Facebook video in August 2017 that she was living in a $70-per-night Travelodge motel in South Hackensack, New Jersey. “I am now living in a Travelodge motel in the asshole end of New Jersey,” she said in the video. “I’m all by myself. And there’s absolutely nobody in my life except my doctor, my psychiatrist — the sweetest man on earth, who says I’m his bloody hero — and that’s about the only fucking thing keeping me alive at the moment… and that’s kind of pathetic. I want everyone to know what it’s like, that’s why I’m making this video.”
She continued, “Mental illness, it’s like drugs, it doesn’t give a shit who you are, and equally what’s worse, it’s the stigma, it doesn’t give a shit who you are. Suddenly all the people who are supposed to be loving you and taking care of you are treating you like shit. It’s like a witch hunt.”
O’Connor went on to say that she was “fighting like all the millions of people” battling a mental illness. “If it was just for me I’d be gone. Straight away back to my mum… because I’ve walked this earth alone for two years now as punishment for being mentally fucking ill and getting angry that no one would fucking take care of me,” she said. “I’m a 5 ft 4 in little fucking woman wandering the world for two years by myself.” She also revealed in the video that she had been hospitalized recently for kidney stones.
A woman who was staying at the motel at the same time as O’Connor told Page Six at the time that the singer came to the hotel “kept to herself” but “left her door wide open all week except at night.” “She had a hospital band on her wrist,’’ the woman said. “She would go to the Pepsi machine.” A source who once collaborated with O’Connor on music also told Page six at the time, “Whatever you think of Sinéad, she’s showing courage in laying bare her problems and shedding light on the fight millions have with depression. I hope she stays with us. She may save someone else’s life in the process.”
Before her death, O’Connor had also been critical of the music industry. In 2023, she wrote an open letter to Miley Cyrus, who named O’Connor as one of he musical influences in an interview with Rolling Stone at the time, to be wary of the music industry. “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,” O’Connor wrote on her site. “It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.”
She continued, “Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited, and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent,” she wrote, adding that music execs “will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.”
O’Connor also spoke about her mental health in an interview with The Guardian in 2017, where she revealed that she was “in the middle of a wrangle” with a magazine at the time that told her their interview would be about her mental health. It’s over an interview with a cunt who wrangled an interview out of me when I was depressed recently. He said it’d be a respectful interview about mental health, but he ended up saying I was crazy for saying I liked sex,” she said. She continued later in the interview, “I’ve had 25 years of people treating me like a crazy person, and I’ve not been well recently. And these journalists were trying to find evidence of my extreme madness.”
How did Sinéad O’Connor die?
How did Sinéad O’Connor die? O’Connor died at her home in London on July 26, 2023. She was 56 years old. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” her family said in a statement at the time.
British police told Variety at the time that O’Connor was found “unresponsive” in her home just after 11 a.m. on July 26 and was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities also confirmed at the time that O’Connor’s death wasn’t being treated as suspicious.
In a Facebook post in July 2023, weeks before her death, O’Connor announced that she moved back to London after 23 years away from the city and was planning a new album and tour. “Hi All, recently moved back to London after 23 years absence. Very happy to be home : ) Soon finishing my album. Release early next year : ) Hopefully Touring Australia and New Zealand toward end 2024. Europe, USA and other territories beginning early 2025 : ) #TheBitchIsBack,” she wrote at the time.
Before her death, O’Connor had been open about her struggle with mental health. In 2015, she canceled her summer tour dates, including her appearance at the Festival Big Top in Galway, Ireland, due to “exhaustion” from an unresolved “medical situation.” “She is suffering from exhaustion due to an existing not resolved medical situation and she has been advised by the doctor to stop any activity and rest,” a statement from O’Connor’s agent read at the time. “Because of this she is completely unable to travel and to perform.”
She also canceled a tour in 2012, telling fans that she had to call off the concerts “with enormous regret” because she was “very unwell due to bipolar disorder.” O’Connor revealed that she experienced a “very serious breakdown” between December and March 2023 but didn’t follow her doctor’s advice to not go on tour because she didn’t want to disappoint her fans. “So very stupidly I ignored his advice to my great detriment, attempting to be stronger than I actually am. I apologize sincerely for any difficulties this may cause.”
In a 2007 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, O’Connor revealed that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and experienced thoughts of suicide four years before her diagnosis. “It’s like being a bucket with holes in it. Just leaking tears from every pore,” she said at the time, adding that she was taking mood stabilizing and antidepressant medications but was a “work in progress. “I’m not going to sit here and claim that I’m kind of perfect or anything. Anything is an improvement when you’ve been in desolation … to be out of that place is brilliant. It doesn’t mean you don’t have lumps and bumps,” she said.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential counseling.
Rememberings: Scenes from My Complicated Life
Rememberings by Sinead O’Connor
$15
Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world-famous—living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U.”
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