Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard performed Sinéad O'Connor's hit song "Nothing Compares 2 U" for “SNL50: The Anniversary Special" which aired last night, Sunday, February 16.
Cyrus and Howard were introduced by actress and comedian Aubrey Plaza for their duet which was backed by The Roots.
The performance comes more than a year and a half after O'Connor's passing in July 2023.
It also comes more than three decades after the Irish singer-songwriter infamously tore up a picture of the Pope and said "Fight the real enemy" while she was the musical guest on "SNL" on October 3, 1992.
As some outlets noted on Monday, while Cyrus and Howard's duet was an apparent tribute to O'Connor, there was no mention of O'Connor's 1992 stunt that was met with backlash and saw her banned from life from the late-night show.
in 1992, sinead o’connor shocked the producers of SNL when at the end of her performance, she tore up a photo of the pope to protest child sex abuse in the church. her career was totally derailed and the church’s abuse did not re-enter the national spotlight for another 10 years pic.twitter.com/MwfO73qSZv
— matt (@mattxiv) July 26, 2023
Responding in 1993, "SNL" boss Lorne Michaels told Spin Magazine: “I thought [it] was sort of the wrong place for it, I thought her behavior was inappropriate.
“Because it was difficult to do two comedy sketches after it, and also it was dishonest because she didn’t tell us she was going to do it.”
He also told Spin that he was shocked “the way you would be shocked at a houseguest pissing on a flower arrangement in the dining room.”
However, the backlash O'Connor initially received has since dissipated.
Indeed, Michaels told this year's "Ladies and Gentleman...50 Years of SNL Music" documentary: "There was a part of me that admired the bravery of what she'd done and also the absolute sincerity of it."
Meanwhile, O'Connor and Cyrus had their own bumpy history.
In 2013, Cyrus told Rolling Stone that the music video for her song "Wrecking Ball" was "like the Sinéad O'Connor video [for 'Nothing Compares 2 U'], but, like, the most modern version."
"I wanted it to be tough but really pretty," Cyrus said, "that's what Sinéad did with her hair and everything."
In response to the comments in Rolling Stone, O'Connor, who was 46 at the time, penned a lengthy open letter to Cyrus "in the spirit of motherliness and with love."
O'Connor told Cyrus she was "extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way 'cool' to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos."
Citing her years of experience in the music industry, O'Connor warned Cyrus: "The music business doesn't give a s--t about you, or any of us.
"They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted … and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, 'they' will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone."
She added: "You are worth more than your body or your sexual appeal."
Cyrus, who was 20 at the time, didn't take kindly to O'Connor's message and likened the Irish songstress to Amanda Bynes, the former Nickelodeon star who suffers from bipolar disorder.
Miley Cyrus and Sinéad O'Connor.
However, in 2023, Cyrus took a markedly softer approach to O'Connor's letter.
Speaking on "Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions)" Cyrus said: “So at the time when I made ‘Wrecking Ball,’ I was expecting for there to be controversy and backlash.
“But I don’t think I expected other women to put me down, or turn on me, especially women who had been in my position before.
“So this is when I had received an open letter from Sinéad O’Connor and I had no idea about the fragile mental state that she was in.
“And I was also only 20 years old, so I could really only wrap my head around mental illness so much.
“And all that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea. And even if I was convinced that it was, it was still just men in power’s idea of me and they had manipulated me to believe that it was my own idea, when it never really was.
“And it was. And it is. And I still love it.”
Cyrus continued: “Our younger childhood triggers and traumas come up in weird and odd ways and I think I had just been judged for so long for my own choices that I was just exhausted and I was in this place where I finally was making my own choices and my own decisions and to have that taken away from me deeply upset me.
“God bless Sinéad O’Connor, for real, in all seriousness.”
Cyrus went on to dedicate a performance of her song "Wonder Woman" to O'Connor.
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