Sinéad O’Connor Sues Doctor for Malpractice
Artist Alleges She Received “The Worst Advice in the History of Medicine”
January 6, 2023
Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor, best known for her 1990 hit version of the song Nothing Compares 2 U, has filed a lawsuit against her former doctor alleging “historically egregious” medical malpractice.
The background, as laid out in the complaint, is straightforward and disturbing. After experiencing an undisclosed personal trauma just over two weeks prior, Ms. O’Connor was in the throes of a debilitating depression, suffering from sleep deprivation and suicidal thoughts. Sufficiently alarmed by her own state of mind, Ms. O’Connor sought out medical advice. According to the complaint, after listening intently to the list of symptoms, the doctor advised Ms. O’Conner that “girl you gotta try to have fun no matter what you do.”
According to a clinical psychiatrist consulted for this article, the doctor’s advice here “demonstrated not the slightest whiff of medical training” and was “borderline retarded.” The psychiatrist elaborated, “the patient was clearly suffering from severe clinical depression, textbook severe clinical depression, but from what I can tell there was no treatment whatsoever. No medication, no therapy, just a nonsensical recommendation to compel the patient to ‘have fun,’ at all costs, which probably made things much, much worse.”
A search of public records indicates that this same doctor was also named as a defendant in malpractice cases brought by the Estate of (the Artist Formerly Known as) Prince and the Estate of Chris Cornell, both of whom—totally coincidentally—also recorded versions of Nothing Compares 2 U.