Lorne Michaels has built up a ton of grudges over 50 years of running “Saturday Night Live,” perhaps none more infamous than his animus toward Sinead O’Connor.
O’Connor tore a photo of Pope John Paul II after a performance on the sketch show in October 1992. She did not share her planned protest of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church with the show’s producers, shocking Michaels when she tossed the torn photo of the Holy See on the ground and said “Fight the real enemy” directly into the camera.
Michaels has consistently derided the late singer’s actions and O’Connor was not welcomed back to the show in her lifetime. In a new documentary about the musical history “Saturday Night Live,” however, Michaels seems to have softened his opinion of O’Connor’s actions.
“There was a part of me that just admired the bravery of what she’d done, and also the absolute sincerity of it,” Michaels shared in “Ladies & Gentleman… 50 Years of SNL Music.”
He sang a different tune for years after the stunt, calling it “inappropriate” in a 1993 interview with SPIN.
“I thought was sort of the wrong place for it, I thought her behavior was inappropriate,” he said. “Because it was difficult to do two comedy sketches after it.”
Time, and the singer’s death in 2023, seem to have mellowed Michaels’ feelings. O’Connor, for her part, never once questioned her decision. In her memoir, the “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer said she was never meant to be famous on the level of artists who perform on “Saturday Night Live.”
“Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame,” she wrote. “A lot of people say or think that tearing up the pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it. I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track. I had to make my living performing live again. And that’s what I was born for. I wasn’t born to be a pop star. You have to be a good girl for that.”
“Ladies & Gentlemen” premieres Jan. 27 on NBC.
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