Miley Cyrus has us all in our feelings this Friday because right before she dropped her new single "Used to Be Young" and the tear-jerking music video, the singer gave a touching tribute to the late Sinéad O'Connor during her Hulu special, Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions).
While performing her song "Wonder Woman" during the show, a message flashed across the bottom of the screen that read "Dedicated to Sinéad O'Connor." In an interview portion before the performance, Cyrus remembered O'Connor and expressed regret for the way she responded to O'Connor's 2013 open letter about the "Wrecking Ball" music video.
"At the time when I made 'Wrecking Ball,' I was expecting for there to be controversy and backlash, but I don't think I expected other women to put me down or turn on me, especially women that had been in my position before," she said referring to O'Connor's open letter to Cyrus after she dropped the "Wrecking Ball" music video in which she appeared naked.
"So this is when I received an open letter from Sinéad O'Connor, and I had no idea about the fragile mental state that she was in. And I was also only 20 years old. So I could really only wrap my head around mental illness so much. And all that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea."
"And even if I was convinced that it was, it was still just, you know, men in power's idea of me," she continued. "And they had manipulated me to believe that it was my own idea when it never really was. And it was. And it is. And I still love it."
Cyrus then went on to say her comments about O'Connor at the time were a result of feeling judged and criticized by others for so long. "Our younger childhood triggers and traumas come up in weird and odd ways, and I think I had just been judged for so long for my own choices that I was just exhausted," she said. "And I was in this place where I finally was making my own choices and my own decisions. And to have that taken away from me deeply upset me."
"God bless Sinéad O’Connor for real, in all seriousness," Cyrus concluded.
O'Connor sadly passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. She was 56. "It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad," her family said in a statement obtained by the Irish Times. "Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qrrSrbClnV6YvK57zKKjnrFdmMazwdJmm56cmZiutbHDZq6oppSav27DzqaYp2WjnrumrcNmppynnqO8s3mWcWxsaGBl