Hours after the world learned that Sinéad O’Connor had passed away at age 56, Pink took to the stage at the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, Ohio. During the kickoff show of her Summer Carnival tour, Pink, 43, took a moment to share how much Sinéad meant to her. “When I was a little girl, my mom grew up in Atlantic City, and I used to go down to the Ocean City Boardwalk with my ten dollars, and I would make a demo tape,” she said, per Billboard. “I would make a little cassette tape and imagine it was my demo for the record company. And it would always be either ‘Greatest Love of All’ by Whitney Houston or ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ by Sinead O’Connor.”
“So in honor of Sinead,” said Pink, “and in honor of my very, very talented friend Brandi Carlile I asked her if she would come out here and sing this song with me.” Out came Brandi, 42, who played earlier in the night as support on the North American Summer Carnival dates. As Billboard’s Gil Kaufman wrote, “What made the song theirs in that moment was the clear conviction that it meant something special to both women and to all of us, a gift they honored by sharing it with their most adoring fans as the raw feelings were still very fresh.”
After the performance, Pink said, “You never know what people are going through. It’s not that hard to give people a smile… we’re all learning that lesson together now.” Brandi shared a clip of the performance to her Instagram Story, calling it a “bittersweet moment.”
Many music stars expressed their grief following Sinéad’s passing. Jason Isbell tweeted, “I hope there’s peace for Sinéad at last.” Billy Corgan wrote, “Fiercely honest and sweet and funny, she was talented in ways I’m not sure she completely understood.” “Respect to Sinead….. She stood for something… Unlike most people…. Rest Easy,” wrote Ice-T. Melissa Etheridge tweeted, “She was haunted all her life. What a talent. I remember meeting this small, shy Irish girl at my first Grammy show.”
Sinéad’s family confirmed her death with a statement. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” the family said. Her death is not being treated as suspicious. In the days before her death, Sinéad expressed how she was still dealing with the loss of her teenage son Shane, who took his own life in 2022.