The estate of Sinéad O’Connor on Monday demanded former President Donald Trump stop using her music at his political rallies.
Trump played the chart-topping Irish singer’s best-known song Nothing Compares 2 U last month at a campaign event in Maryland.
The singer’s estate told BBC News it was “no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt, and insulted” by his use of her music.
A joint statement from O’Connor’s estate and her longtime label Chrysalis Records said:
Throughout her life, it is well known that Sinéad O’Connor lived by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness, and decency towards her fellow human beings.
It was with outrage therefore that we learned that Donald Trump has been using her iconic performance of Nothing Compares 2 U at his political rallies.
It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt, and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil’.
The statement concluded: “As the guardians of her legacy, we demand that Donald Trump, and his associates desist from using her music immediately.”
The Guardian reported songs including Abba’s Dancing Queen, Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire and Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds were used in addition to Nothing Compares 2 U before the likely Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election took to the stage on 24 February.
File/Singer Sinead O’Connor performs at ‘Here But I’m Gone: A 70th Birthday Tribute to Curtis Mayfield’ concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center on July 20, 2012 in New York City. (Mike Coppola/Getty)
The Muslim convert, who infamously tore a photo of Pope John Paul II in half in 1992, found worldwide fame in 1990 with her cover of Prince’s song, Nothing Compares 2 U, which was named the number one world single that year by the Billboard Music Awards.
O’Connor’s version of Nothing Compares 2 U spent four weeks at number one in the UK in 1990.
She died last July, aged 56.