Sinéad O'Connor Spoke Out About Singers Being 'More Valuable' Dead Than Alive (and Labels 'Raping the Vault') Before She Died

Mar. 15, 2025

Sinéad O’Connor.Photo:Rob Ball/Redferns via Getty Images

Rob Ball/Redferns via Getty Images

BeforeSinéad O’Connor’s death in 2023, she was vocal about the exploitation of artists and their catalogs after their death.

Over the weekend, U.K. newspaperThe Sunreported that Irish probate records revealed that the singer left her fortune, which is worth £1.4 million ($1.75 million), to her fourchildren. She also requested that her albums, which sold 6.2 million copies globally, be released as she urged her children to “milk it for what it’s worth.”

O’Connor spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about her memoirRememberingsin 2021. At the time, the singer said that she stressed the importance of protecting her art and finances to her in kids in the event that she died.

“See, when the artists are dead, they’re much more valuable than when they’re alive.Tupachas released way more albums since he died than he ever did alive, so it’s kind of gross what record companies do,“she told PEOPLE at the time.

Sinéad O’Connor accepting an award in Dublin, Ireland, in March 2023.Kieran Frost/Redferns

Kieran Frost/Redferns

“That’s why I’ve always instructed my children since they were very small, ‘If your mother drops dead tomorrow, before you called 911, call my accountant and make sure the record companies don’t start releasing my records and not telling you where the money is,'” O’Connor continued.

The conversation emerged when the “Mandinka” singer recalled a strange encounter she had withPrince, which she wrote about in her book. Though she walked away “not liking him very much,” she came to his defense when discussing how corporations profited off his music after his death in 2016.

“One of the things that’s a great bugbear with me, I get very angry when I think of it, is the fact that they’re raping his vault,” she told PEOPLE. “All musicians, we have songs that we really are embarrassed about that are crap. We don’t want anyone hearing them. Now this is a man who released every song he ever recorded, so if he went to the trouble of building a vault, which is a pretty strong thing to do, that means he really did not want these songs released. And I can’t stand that people are, as I put it, raping the vault.”

Sinéad O’Connor performing in London in 2014.Christie Goodwin/Redferns via Getty

Christie Goodwin/Redferns via Getty

In the probate records, which she signed in 2013, O’Connor also wrote that her children “can dispense my ashes as they see fit,” perThe Sun.

The “Drink Before the War” singer died after being found unresponsive at a home in London on July 26, 2023. She was 56.

O’Connor’sofficial cause of deathwas revealed in July 2024. The singer died from “exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection,” theIrish Independentreported at the time, citing her death certificate.

source: people.com