Singer Sinead O’Connor, who now goes by the name Shuhada Davitt after announcing her conversion to Islam, has returned to Twitter to explain a comment that brought her quite a bit of backlash.
Last week, O’Connor tweeted that she never wants to “spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting.” She prefaced the tweet by warning followers that she was going to say “something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it.”
https://twitter.com/MagdaDavitt77/status/1059747609655627776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1059747609655627776&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Flife%2F2018%2F11%2F06%2Fsinead-oconnor-upsets-muslims-calls-white-people-disgusting%2F1912720002%2F
The tweet angered many white people and Muslims, and over the weekend she returned with a short video, in which she attempted to justify her remarks. Whispering, O’Connor claimed that she came back to Twitter because she “loves annoying the white supremacists” tweeting at her and that she doesn’t actually hate white people, she just hoped her tweet would get her account closed “if I said I did.” She added that Twitter closed her account when she said that she doesn’t like “nuns murdering babies in Ireland.”
https://twitter.com/MagdaDavitt77/status/1061210993219506176
O’Connor has used social media to express her struggles with mental health in the past. In 2015, she posted a troubling note to Facebook claiming that she was at a hotel and had “taken an overdose,” though she was later found safe. Last year, she posted a video detailing her struggles with suicidal thoughts; fellow musician Fiona Apple posted a supportive message, telling O’Connor, “You’re my hero.” O’Connor also appeared on Dr. Phil to discuss mental health.
More recently she tweeted her distaste for President Donald Trump and theologian John Milbank. Earlier this month, she again touched on mental illness, tweeting, “I can also say for certain if I had been a Muslim woman suffering mental illness brought about by repeated acts of sexual violence in childhood and adulthood, I wouldn’t be constantly abused for suffering that illness.”
O’Connor, who had previously changed her name to Magda Davitt, has reportedly been working on a new album slated for 2019 release.
H/T Daily Mail