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A week after posting a tearful Facebook video from a Hackensack, New Jersey hotel room — in which she talked about her struggle with suicidal thoughts — Sinead O’Connor blasted her most recent manager Bruce Garfield on the social media site — and wrote that she had “fired” him.
“BRUCE,” O’Connor wrote in all caps, referring to her most recent manager Bruce Garfield. “What sick part of your head failed to hear that you are being prosecuted and sent to jail by me, for forgery and for facilitating my suicide four times as well as failing to act to save my life. ?”
O’Connor then warned Garfield to stop contacting her and her friends — including Rourke — adding “DO NOT DARE TO SEND ANY MORE OF MY FRIENDS ROUND TO THIS HOSPITAL WITH SIGNED PHOTOS OF WOLF FUCKING BLITZER OR ANYONE ELSE”.
Asked to comment, Garfield replied by email, “I am no longer managing Sinéad. I think her Facebook post speaks for itself.” He added that he found O’Connor’s assertion that she had fired him, “objectionable.”
O’Connor first indicated that she was cutting ties with Garfield in an earlier Aug. 10 post addressed to the “Good people of Facebook,” She thanked her supporters “for your love,” explaining that she was in a “wonderful, loving hospital” and had passed a “bastard kidney stone.” But she also wrote that doctors were keeping her for observation: she was “back on depression meds and also meds for PTSD” (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). She then thanked her “loving followers who have saved my life and lifted my spirits so much in the last two years. Lets fight all this stigma and abandonment together. I love you,” O’Connor wrote, before appearing to thank TV therapist Dr. Phil McGraw: “Oh! Also many, many thanks to Dr Phil who has [offered] to fly from Texas to help me. I am blown away.”
On Aug. 3, the Irish singer-songwriter — who, in April 1990 hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” — had posted a harrowing Facebook video from a hotel in Hackensack telling fans, “People who suffer from mental illness are the most vulnerable people on Earth. You’ve got to take care of us.”
But as of approximately 5 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 10, O’Connor — who, in 2014 told Billboard it was her “proudest night ever” when she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II during an appearance on Saturday Night Live — had regained her signature bluster, indicating that she had hired a new manager, Anna M. Sala, the director of AB Artists Management, a firm that reps artists Pharoah Sanders and Ravi Coltrane. O’Connor also wrote that she had hired a new lawyer.
Sala declined to comment for this story but issued a statement in support of O’Connor: “Sinead is a brave and courageous woman. She says her truth without fear or shame. And just as she fought against child abuse in the church, she will fight with the same strength against the stigma of mental illness, even while putting her own neck on the line. She is like no one else. Her courage is endless. Despite her own heartbreak, she is always concerned about the suffering of others and how she can use her voice to help them. She is receiving the best medical care. She is lovingly supported by a musician advocacy organization with a team of people who are working with her on the road to healing. She is improving day by day. Sinead herself said: “If not for Jazz Foundation I wouldn’t have made it. I would not be alive today if not for the unconditional love & kindness of these people.” We are asking people to send their prayers and loving support. At this time, we are all focused on her health and wellness. But without a doubt, her fighting spirit is intact.”
This story first appeared on billboard.com
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