Lorne Michaels says he would've asked banned singer Sinead O'Connor to perform at "SNL "anniversary if she was still alive Joey NolfiAugust 24, 2025 at 6:00 AM Sinead O'Connor performing on 'Saturday Night Live' Over 30 years after late singersongwriter Sinead O'Connor was effectively banned from Sa...
- - Lorne Michaels says he would've asked banned singer Sinead O'Connor to perform at "SNL "anniversary if she was still alive
Joey NolfiAugust 24, 2025 at 6:00 AM
Sinead O'Connor performing on 'Saturday Night Live'
Over 30 years after late singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor was effectively banned from Saturday Night Live over her infamous performance in which she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II, SNL head Lorne Michaels has admitted he would've asked her back to appear on the celebratory SNL50 anniversary special.
In a new interview, Michaels, 80, spoke about the February event's Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard collaborative performance of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U," a song famously covered by O'Connor, who died of natural causes in 2023.
Fielding a question about whether he, at any point, reconsidered calling "attention to one of SNL's more controversial moments" with the song selection, Michaels said, "No" in response.
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'SNL' head Lorne Michaels
"If [O'Connor] were still alive, I would have asked her to sing that song," Michaels confirmed to Puck. "But it was represented by Miley singing it with so much power."
Though Michaels has been adamant in the past that the show has never issued an official ban for any performers, O'Connor was never invited back after her on-air stunt and the show boss spoke out against her actions in a 1993 edition of Spin magazine.
"I thought was sort of the wrong place for it, I thought her behavior was inappropriate," Michaels told the outlet at the time. "Because it was difficult to do two comedy sketches after it, and also it was dishonest because she didn't tell us she was going to do it. ... We were sort of shocked, the way you would be shocked at a houseguest pissing on a flower arrangement in the dining room."
He later changed his tune on the matter, saying in this year's Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music documentary that he felt differently about the situation in hindsight.
"There was a part of me that just admired the bravery of what she'd done, and also the absolute sincerity of it," he said in the project.
Cyrus was also embroiled in controversy with O'Connor, after the latter penned an open letter condemning Cyrus' sexuality in her 2013 "Wrecking Ball" music video.
In her Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions) concert film, Cyrus opened up about her exchange with O'Connor, saying, "I was expecting there to be controversy and backlash" to the video, "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."
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Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard perform 'Nothing Compares 2 U' on 'SNL50'
She continued, "This is when I'd received an open letter from Sinead 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. All that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea."
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Elsewhere in his Puck interview, Michaels shifted his attention to other performances he was surprised by during the anniversary event, including one by returning cast member Adam Sandler and his "incredibly emotional" performance of "50 Years" that included a tribute to SNL stars who have died over the years.
"That covered another kind of emotion, for his period [of the show]," Michaels reflected.
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