Lorne Michaels says he would have extended an invitation to Sinead O’Connor to perform at SNL50 if she were still alive. The Saturday Night Live boss made the comment in a new interview with Puck, two years after O’Connor died at age 56.
During the anniversary special, which aired in February 2025, Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard performed Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” in the style of O’Connor’s 1990 version of the song.
Speaking with Puck, Michaels said, “If [O’Connor] were still alive, I would have asked her to sing that song. But it was represented by Miley singing it with so much power.”
Michaels’ comment about O’Connor comes more than 30 years after the Irish singer was banned from Saturday Night Live following a controversial a cappella performance of the Bob Marley song “War.”
On October 3, 1992, O’Connor used her SNL performance to stage a protest against the Catholic Church. She famously ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II as she said, “Fight the real enemy.” The audience appeared silent during the shocking moment as the production crew reportedly kept the “applause” sign off.
According to Far Out magazine. O’Connor kept her religious protest a secret during rehearsals, but when she pulled out the Pope photo during the live broadcast, NBC Vice-President of Late Night, Rick Ludwin, “literally jumped out of [his] chair” as the production team attempted to cut the feed.
O’Connor was ultimately banned from SNL for life.
O’Connor told The New York Times in 2021 that she had no regrets over her actions, despite the fierce backlash she received at the time. “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” she said. “But it was very traumatizing. It was open season on treating me like a crazy b—-.”
Sinead O’Connor Said She Was a Protest Singer, Not a Pop Star
Two years before her SNL performance, O’Connor charted her first and only Billboard Hot 100 hit with “Nothing Compares 2 U,”per Billboard.com.
In a 2021 Interview with Today, she said, “Sinead O’Connor was never meant to be a pop star. I was really a protest singer, you know?”
In the interview, the singer noted that her controversial SNL move came years before the church’s sex abuse scandals were uncovered in America. “Ten years after the Pope-ripping episode, you all then found out in America that this was going on,” she said. “We always say Americans, they think nothing happened until they found out about it.”
She also called her SNL appearance “a blessing.” “I had to make my living doing the thing I loved doing, which is making music live,” she said.
Decades later, fans still watch the YouTube video of O’Connor’s SNL performance. One commenter described it as an “iconic & influential act of punk rock & protest.” Others called the singer “brave” for taking a stand.
“When I was young I used to think she was odd. Now I know this world never deserved her,” one commenter wrote.
