Sinéad O’Connor. Photo by Donol Moloney
Sinéad O'Connor's death in July 2023 was the result of natural causes, according to a statement from a London coroner report obtained by the New York Times. Following the result of the autopsy, which began soon after O'Connor's death, the coroner announced that they have “therefore ceased their involvement in her death.”
The Irish singer-songwriter was 56 when she passed away in a London residence. Tributes to O'Connor covered not just her music career — her No. 1 smash hit cover of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U" remains her best-known work — but her tireless activism on behalf of the oppressed. Her righteous fury proved inescapable in 1992 when, during a performance on Saturday Night Live, O'Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II in protest of child abuse in the Catholic Church.
O'Connor had been working on a new album at the time of her death and plotting a potential 2024 tour. She was also weighing a feature-length adaptation of her autobiography Rememberings, published in 2021.