Sinead O’Connor is returning to touring this fall, but before she does that, the “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer apologized for calling white people “disgusting.” She made the comment in a November 2018 tweet, and now says it was made while she was “angry and unwell.” O’Connor said the comments are “not true.” O’Connor published the original tweet after she converted to Islam and took the name Shuhada Sadaqat.
“I’m terribly sorry. What I’m about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called),” she wrote on Nov. 6, 2018. “Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting.”
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While on Ireland’s The Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy Friday, O’Connor apologized for the comment, reports PEOPLE. She also apologized on Twitter Sunday.
“As regards to remarks I made while angry and unwell, about white people… they were not true at the time and they are not true now,” O’Connor wrote. “I was triggered as a result of Islamophobia dumped on me. I apologize for hurt caused. That was one of many crazy tweets lord knows.”
O’Connor told Tubridy she “reverted” to Islam, not converted.
“The word ‘revert’ refers to the idea that if you were to study the Quran, you would realize that you were a Muslim all your life and you didn’t realize it,” the singer explained. “That’s what happened to me.”
She went on to explain that when she grew up in Ireland, the country was “very oppressed” when it came to religion.
“Everybody was miserable. Nobody was getting any joy in God… Whatever they were telling you God said, I thought, ‘Well this makes no sense because everybody is miserable,’” the 52-year-old said. “So I started reading the scriptures when I was a very young child and then I started studying scriptures from different religions trying to find the ‘truth’ about God and such.”
O’Connor said she studied Islam last because of her own prejudice about the religion. But after reading the second chapter of the Quran, she realized, “Oh my God, I’m home. I’ve been a Muslim all my life, and I didn’t realize it.”
“It’s a way of thinking — Islam,” she said of the religion. “You can almost be a Muslim without actually, officially being a Muslim. It’s a headset. A Muslim is only a person who believes nothing in the universe should be worshipped except God.”
O’Connor wore a red hijab on the show, where she also performed “Nothing Compares 2 U” as a tribute to Prince. O’Connor said she does not have to wear a hijab, but she does “because I like it.”
Before the taping Friday, O’Connor was pictured outside the studio not wearing the hijab. Her son, 15-year-old Shane, accompanied her to the studio.
O’Connor plans to tour Ireland in October before a comeback U.S. tour. She announced her conversion to Islam in a tweet on Oct. 19, 2018.
“This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam,” she wrote. “Which makes all other scriptures redundant. I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada’.”
Photo credit: YouTube/RTE
