Sinéad O’Connor’s rights holders demand that Donald Trump stop using her song

“Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted.” The rights holders and Chrysalis Records, the former label of the deceased, denounced on Monday the use of one of the singer's titles by Donald Trump during his rallies in Maryland and North Carolina.

Angry with the former president, rights holders spoke to the specialist magazine Variety , demanding that Trump “immediately stop” using his song. “Sinéad O'Connor lived by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness and decency towards her fellow human beings,” the singer's rights holders told the specialist magazine Variety. So it was with outrage that we learned that Donald Trump was using his iconic performance of “Nothing Compares 2 U” at his political rallies.”

In 1990, the single Nothing Compares 2 U, initially written by Prince, was covered by the singer and featured on her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. The title rose to first place in the rankings in Europe and the United States, allowing Sinéad O'Connor to establish herself on the international scene. “It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to see her work distorted in this way by someone she herself described as a “biblical devil”,” said the rights holders of the singer, who died last July at the age of 56.

This is far from the first time that an artist or his rights holders have refused to allow Donald Trump to use certain songs during rallies. Since 2016, Pharrell Williams, Adele, Panic! At The Disco, R.E.M, Guns N' Roses, Rihanna, the Beatles, Aerosmith and even Eddy Grant have all publicly denounced the use of one or more of their titles by the Republican Party.