SINEAD O’CONNOR has hit out at the BBC over an interview she described as both “offensive and misogynistic”.
The Irish singer has pledged to boycott BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour after taking offence at host Emma Barnett’s line of questioning.
O’Connor, who changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat after converting to Islam, was on the show to talk about her new memoir Rememberings.
However, the interview soon went awry when Barnett brought up a remark made by The Telegraph‘s music critic Neil McCormick, who described O’Connor as “the crazy lady in pop’s attic”.
O’Connor, replied: "I think it’s a bit extreme to make the Jane Eyre comparison, I don’t think I’ve ever been perceived as ‘the crazy lady in pop’s attic’ as represented in Jane Eyre…
"It’s not like I’m trying to attack people with knives or trying to strangle people while I’m walking around in my nightdress."
Hours later, O’Connor took to Twitter to express her dismay at the comments made.
"Actually found the interview with @Emmabarnett extremely offensive and even misogynistic," she tweeted.
"One abusive and invalidating question or statement after another: ‘madwoman in the attic’. At that point I should have ended it. I will absolutely never do Women’s hour again."
O’Connor also went on to apologise over a remark made during the interview in which she compared herself to a Jamaican man because she had been married four times and had four children.
"I’m kind of like a Jamaican father, fathers say is a revolving door in my house," she said.
"Nobody bats an eyelid when Jamaican fellas have kids with fucking – sorry didn’t mean to say that – they have kids with tons of people and no one bats an eyelid."
Addressing the remarks in a follow-up tweet, the singer wrote: “Also, apologies if I accidentally offended Jamaican men. I was referring to specific friends of mine in the music business. Jamaican people are my favourite people on this earth and Jamaican male musicians my biggest inspiration.”
Commenting on O’Connor’s criticism, a spokesperson for the BBC said: “During an interview about her new book, Sinead O’Connor was talking about her mental health and was asked what she made of a comment by a music critic reviewing her book in recent days.”
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