Irish singer Sinead O'Connor retracts her retirement statement: 'I love my job'

The Muslim singer-songwriter says she let 'female misogynists' affect her decision-making in 'colourful' statement

Sinead O'Connor announced on Twitter that she is retiring from music, but she has since retracted her statement. Corbis

Sinead O’Connor has retracted her retirement statement.

The Irish musician announced this week that she was going to take a step back from touring and "working in the record business".

"I've gotten older and I'm tired," she wrote, also saying that No Veteran Dies Alone, due to be released in 2022, will be her final album.

“This is not sad news. It’s staggeringly beautiful news. A warrior knows when he or she should retreat. It’s been a 40-year journey. Time to put the feet up and make other dreams come true.”

Now it appears the singer, who is also known as Shuhada’ Sadaqat, is not ready to call it quits on music yet.

O'Connor published a lengthy Twitter post yesterday, saying she had a lapse in judgment and had let "pigs in lipstick", or "female misogynists", mess with her head. She said she was "badly triggered" after a series of interviews about her new memoir Rememberings, in which she details the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, as well as the psychological challenges brought on by fame.

“When I embarked upon promo for my book, I ought to have had a counsellor on board,” she wrote. “Because I hadn’t realised how much talking about the past, particularly my experience of abuse not only as a child, but as a legally vulnerable adult … would trigger so much emotional catharsis.”

The singer slammed the UK media for its role in exacerbating her mental health. She criticised Emma Barnett, presenter of BBC Radio 4 show Woman's Hour, for repeating a statement made by The Telegraph, which labelled O'Connor as "the crazy woman in pop's attic".

O’Connor said it had been “unnecessary and hurtful” for Barnett to repeat the statement during their June 1 interview. In a Twitter post, she described the interview as “extremely offensive and even misogynistic".

After her experience with the BBC, she said, "I felt “like I did 30 years ago and for 30 years.

“I’d be better off (safer) if I ran away and gave up being in music at all. Because I keep getting used as a coat hanger for people to clothe with whatever they like.”

She said that, ahead of her promotional tour for Rememberings, she had explicitly asked news agencies to be sensitive about her experiences with abuse and not bring them up during interviews. According to the Nothing Compares 2 U singer, only US media had complied with her request.

O'Connor then decided it would be better to quit music altogether. However, in the past few days, she backtracked on her decision. "I love my job," she said. "Making music, that is. I don't like the consequences of being a talented (and outspoken woman) being that I have to wade through walls of prejudice every day to make a living. But I am born for live performance."