Sinead O’Connor vows to boycott Woman’s Hour after ‘offensive’ interview: ‘I should have ended it’

Sinead O’Connor has announced her plans to boycott BBC’s Woman’s Hour after an interview which she found ‘offensive’. 

The Nothing Compares 2 U singer spoke to host Emma Barnett on Tuesday morning to discuss her new memoir Rememberings. 

However, the conversation became awkward when Emma mentioned a negative comment made in a review of Sinead’s autobiography. 

The presenter said: ‘I was very struck by an interview with Neil McCormick, the music critic for The Telegraph, when he said your reputation as “the crazy lady in pop’s attic” has pursued you. 

‘I wonder what you made of that?’ 

Sinead, who has changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat, replied: ‘I think it’s a bit extreme to make the Jane Eyre comparison, I don’t think I’ve ever been perceived as “the crazy lady in pop’s attic” as represented in Jane Eyre…

‘It’s not like I’m trying to attack people with knives or trying to strangle people while I’m walking around in my nightdress.’ 

Hours after the appearance, Sinead revealed she took great offence to the line of questioning and tweeted: ‘Actually found the interview with @Emmabarnett extremely offensive and even misogynistic. 

‘One abusive and invalidating question or statement after another: “madwoman in the attic” At that point I should have ended it. I will absolutely never do Women’s hour again.’ 

Emma has not addressed Sinead’s tweets but did restrict the comments under an earlier Twitter post where she promoted the interview. 

In a follow-up tweet, Sinead wrote: ‘Also, apologies if I accidentally offended Jamaican men. I was referring to specific friends of mine in the music business. Jamaican people are my favourite people on this earth and Jamaican male musicians my biggest inspiration.’ 

It was in reference to her comment during the interview where Sinead compared herself to a Jamaican man as she has been married four times and has four children. 

Leading onto the subject, Emma said: ‘You talk about having four children by four different men and you do say that’s deliberate. I like your description of yourself as a horn dog, as someone expressing themselves and being themselves.’ 

Sinead then explained: ‘I think women always had the freedom to do what they want sexually… I haven’t computed in my life people of my parents or my grandparents’ generation that there was any limitation of women and their sexuality…

‘It would probably be unusual still – I don’t know what it’s like in England – but it’s certainly unusual for someone to have more than two kids with different fathers.’

She then claimed: ‘I’m kind of like a Jamaican father, fathers say is a revolving door in my house…

‘Nobody bats an eyelid when Jamaican fellas have kids with f*****g – sorry didn’t mean to say that – they have kids with tons of people and no one bats an eyelid.’ 

Emma noted that the stereotypical generalisation could cause offence, to which Sinead insisted: ‘I wasn’t stereotyping, I was talking about a particular man I can’t remember his name. I have to stop you there…

‘I’m not generalising on Jamaican people. They are my favourite people on earth, they’re the greatest people on planet earth…

‘The fact is lots of them have lots of kids with lots of women and nobody bats a f*****g eyelid. I can name you a hundred men.’ 

Metro.co.uk has contacted the BBC and Emma Barnett’s reps for comment.

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