At the height of her fame Sinead O'Connor risked everything to stand up against child sexual abuse
She was fearless.

Sinead O'Conner performing at a 1992 Bob Dylan tribute concert
In 1992, Sinéad O’Connor ignited outrage during her musical act performance on “Saturday Night Live”, when she boldly tore up a photo of the Pope to call for justice against the child sexual abuse epidemic within the Catholic Church, all while singing an acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War.”
The protest angered the network, “SNL” viewers, and even the Vatican, which risked O’Connor’s entire career. But having experienced abuse as a child at the hands of the Catholic Church, she knew she was fighting for something bigger than reputation.
"Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame,” she wrote in her 2021 memoir titled “Rememberings.”
A little over a week after the “SNL” incident, the “Nothing Compares” singer got relentlessly booed at a Bob Dylan tribute. She stood in stoic silence, taking in jeers and name-calling from the crowd.
Finally, she waved for the pianist to stop playing, then doubled down with an even more raw, more haunting rendition of “War.”
Watch the powerful moment below:
Despite the backlash, America and the rest of the world would later come to see that O’Connor was completely founded in her accusation.
Forever a “protest singer” first and a pop idol second, O’Connor would go on to lead a life full of activism, speaking out on issues related to child abuse, mental health, human rights, anti-racism, organized religion, and women's rights.
Now that the beloved non-conformist has died at the age of 56, she will be forever remembered as a courageous champion of truth, who led with integrity above all else.
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Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared on 04.27.16