14 DAY TRIAL // Sinead O’Connor is mad at producers of the American Music Awards and she’s sparing no expense in letting them know it, putting them on blast in a profanity-laden message on her official website. The reason she’s so upset at them is simple: a planned performance for her at the AMAs 2014, which could have become a duet with Pope Francis.
To paraphrase the singer, are you sitting down for this? Things are about to get very interesting really soon.
For a bit of context, we should note that, in 1992, when she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, Sinead tore a photo of Pope John Paul II, whom she dubbed “the real enemy.” Video is embedded below. This gesture got her a lifetime ban on SNL, so having her perform now with Pope Francis would have been an absolute win.
Sinead says producers reached out to her with the idea, then acted like unprofessional douches
According to the aforementioned post, Sinead was contacted by three men from Dick Clark Productions, asking her if she’d be interested in performing at the AMAs 2014, a medley of “Nothing Compares” and “Take Me to Church.”
She said she was, to which she was informed the gig still needed approval from the network and that they would get back to her as soon as they had an answer on that. About 3 weeks later, she was contacted again, this time with an even crazier idea: how would she like it if they got Pope Francis to do a duet with her?
Wouldn’t that be truly something else considering her 1992 gesture and the controversy that followed? Sinead says yes, she’d be game even for a duet with the Pope.
A couple of weeks later, she received another call, learning that the three producers had failed to get through to the Pope, so the planned duet couldn’t happen. But it’s the way they tried to contact the Pope that most amused her.
“Further it was decided that these three stooges would (in all seriousness) attempt to contact the Pope via his Twitter account alone, and via no other means. Since naturally their idea was not only disrespectful to the pope and to millions of catholics (The idea he ought consider lowering his feet into the disgusting world of show business and celebrity at all! Never mind with Sinead O’Connor) they didn’t get a response and consequently I’m now not doing the show,” Sinead writes.
She’s upset that the producers of a show as big as the AMAs would be this unprofessional, and she’s saying it out loud.
Producers claim this was Sinead’s plan in fact
On the other hand, the producers tell TMZ that most of the story is bogus. It’s true that Sinead was considered for a performance, because of the increased media attention in her as of late, but now she’s definitely not singing at the gala, not when she’s lying about what happened.
Apparently, Sinead contacted the producers and lobbied for the performance, stressing how much media attention it would generate. Not once was the possibility of having the Pope on stage, singing a duet with her, brought up. Never did they offer to get him there because, we assume, they suspected he’d have much better things to do with his time.
The negotiations were still ongoing at the time Sinead posted her ridiculous story on her official page. They’re over now because producers want nothing to do with her anymore.
