First she called out Miley Cyrus for “allowing herself to be pimped” by the music world, now Sinead O’Connor has some thoughts on Justin Bieber.
The “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer has again hit out against sexualizing music stars to make money, saying it is not just young women like Cyrus that are exposed.
“I think that people focus an awful lot on the female aspect to this, but it is also the males. The very young male artists who are practically children or look like children are also being sexualized,” she told Britain’s Magic FM. “Justin Bieber is a great example. When he came along he was only 16 years of age.
“Obviously he was extraordinarily talented, so I’m not trying to negate that, but he was very much being sold on his sexuality,” the 47-year-old added. “Britney Spears, of course was quite inappropriately young to be sold in that way, dressed up in a school uniform, but I think that really people forget that the guys are going through it as well, and I think that is quite important.”
O’Connor clashed with Cyrus last year after the former Disney star said she filmed the video clip for her hit song “Wrecking Ball” with O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” in mind.
O’Connor wrote an open letter in which she said the music industry had tricked her into thinking “that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers”.
Cyrus didn’t take too kindly to the advice and brought up O’Connor’s battle with mental illness, comparing her to American actor Amanda Bynes.
That prompted O’Connor to then write her second of four open letters to Cyrus.
“You can take five minutes today between g- string f–kin’ changes to publicly apologise and remove your abusive tweets,” she wrote. “When you publicly apologize to Amanda and myself and all mental health sufferers as well as all who were abused by priests that will end the matter as far as I am concerned … When you end up in the psych ward or rehab I’ll be happy to visit you … and would not lower myself to mock you.”
O’Connor is about to release her tenth album entitled I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss. The name of the record is inspired by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Ban Bossy campaign.