While Sinead O’Connor had some kind words for Miley Cyrus last week , encouraging her to be on the lookout for exploitation, the pop starlet lashed out cruelly on Twitter — mocking the Irish singer for a mental breakdown in response for her concern.
Sinead O’Connor ‘s open letter to Miley Cyrus drew a mixed response, with some people finding the sentiment to resonate, and others feeling it was in its own way a little sexist. But reaction from the public aside, Cyrus’ mocking tweets were an issue of their own.
In them, Miley not only ragged on Sinead for her breakdown, but insulted Amanda Bynes as well, saying “before Amanda Bynes, there was Sinead O’Connor.” And while O’Connor’s counsel was neither sought nor seemingly desired, her response to Cyrus’ attack is thoughtful, assertive without being defensive, and really moving.
The new open letter to Miley Cyrus from Sinead O’Connor carefully explains the danger of not only stigmatizing mental illness, but turning it into a joke.
O’Connor is honest about her experiences, saying to the singer:
“You’ve said on Matt Lauer’s show (where you again refer to me as ‘crazy’) that you don’t understand why I have been upset with you. I find that hard to understand frankly, since you’re clearly very far from being a stupid woman… My problem with you stems from your response to my first letter. Until you exposed me (and Amanda Bynes) to abuse on the grounds of my having sought help (extremely coherently) to save my life, when experiencing suicidal compulsion as a side effect of a medication called Tegretol, I had no problem with you whatsoever.”
Miley Cyrus, please take a seat. Sinead also says:
“I hope that clarifies the confusion you expressed on Matt’s show, where you conveniently forgot how it got from someone sending you what was intended as a caring message to that same someone being extremely upset with you.. And then went on to repeat the very action which caused that upset.”
After requesting an apology for both herself and Bynes, the singer explains:
“I’m not sure if you are aware that in your own country 7 out of every 100,000 people between the ages of 15 and 19 commit suicide every year. The third highest cause of death for those in that age range (this is the age range you stated on Matt’s show ‘most of’ your fans are) or that on average one person in your country dies by suicide every 16.2 minutes.”
You can read Sinead O’Connor’s second open letter to Miley Cyrus below, in the embedded post.
[fb link=”https://www.facebook.com/sineadoconnor/posts/602795713092754?][/fb]