Shaving head was two fingers to music biz – I wasn’t having any man telling me who to be, Sinead O’Connor says
SINEAD O’Connor says shaving her head was her way of giving two fingers to the patriarchy — and proving she was not like other pop stars.
The Nothing Compares 2 U singer shot to fame in the late 1980s with a unique sound and image.
In a new interview for forthcoming movie Nothing Compares, Sinead revealed how she shaved her head in a stand-off with her record company before they launched her first album.
Sinead said: “They wanted me to grow my hair long, wear short skirts and high heels and make-up and write songs that wouldn’t challenge anything.
“But I come from a country where there used to be riots in the streets over plays. That’s what art is for.
“There’s a tradition among Irish artists of being agitators and activists — whether they’re playwrights or poets.”
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Rejecting the feminine look, Sinead took a scissors and razor to her locks.
Her then-collaborator, producer and future husband John Reynolds said the shaved head was the perfect message to send to record company bosses.
He said: “The record label was trying to brand Sinead as a generic female but she was having none of it.
“They looked at Sinead’s shaved head and went ‘Now we know what we are dealing with’.
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“It was a powerful statement from a woman, because it said ‘don’t f*** with me!’”
In a new interview, Sinead commented: “I wasn’t going to have any man telling me what to do, or who to be.
“I came from a patriarchal country where I am being told what I can and can’t do because I am a girl.
“And I figured, if I didn’t take it from the system in Ireland, I ain’t taking it from anybody else.”
But Kathyrn Ferguson’s film shows how male TV hosts were unsettled by the sight of Sinead’s shaved head when she promoted her music in the US.
Kathyrn said: “It caused such a ruckus for so long and for so many years. She just felt to be taken seriously, she needed to almost strip everything back.”
Nothing Compares is released on October 7 in Irish cinemas.
