Sinead O’Connor opened up about her childhood during a deeply emotional interview with Dr. Phil.
In a preview for the episode, airing Tuesday, September 12, the “Nothing Compares to You’” singer alleged she suffered years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, Marie O’ Connor.
“She ran a torture chamber,” the star claimed in the clip released by the Daily Mail. “She was a person who took delight in hurting you.”
Sinead ran away from home when she was 13. Marie died in a car crash six years later when Sinead was 19.
“She was not well. She was very, very, very, not well,” the 50-year-old Grammy winner alleged to Dr. Phil. “I would say she was possessed. Although I’m not sure I believe in such things.”
In the teaser, Sinead talked about her mental health battle and nodded when Dr. Phil noted that she tried to kill herself eight times in just one year.
Last month, Sinead broke down in a distressing 12-minute video shared to her Facebook. “I’m not living in a Travelodge motel in the arse-end of New Jersey,” she said at the time. “I’m all by myself. And there’s absolutely nobody in my life except my doctor, my psychiatrist, the sweetest man on earth, who says I’m his hero, and that’s about the only f—ing thing keeping me alive at the moment . . . and that’s kind of pathetic.”
Sinead was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2003 and threatened to commit suicide in a letter posted to Facebook in 2015. “I have taken an overdose,” she wrote. “There is no other way to get respect. I am not at home, I’m at a hotel, somewhere in Ireland, under another name. If I wasn’t posting this, my kids and family wouldn’t ever find out.” In May 2016, she threatened to take her life after she lost custody of her 13-year-old son.
The musician has been married four times and has one child with each of her ex husbands.She has also legally changed her name to Madga Davitt to be free of “parental curses.”
