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Simon Napier-Bell responds to Sinéad O’Connor allegations over live income

By | Published on Wednesday 19 August 2015

Sinead O'Connor

Artist manager Simon Napier-Bell yesterday issued a statement in response to Facebook posts made by his now seemingly former client Sinéad O’Connor, about monies that have been generated by her recent live activity.

In her posts, O’Connor, who had to cancel a South American tour because of issues around her health, and that of her son, claims that she was misled by her agent as to who should take financial responsibility for the cancelled dates. She then accuses her agent of also ripping her off on those concerts that did go ahead.

And while it is her former booking agent that O’Connor directs most of the anger and allegations towards, she goes on to claim that these arrangements went ahead “with the full (written, and totally behind my back, without my knowledge) support of Simon Napier Bell, Bjorn De Water and my now ex accountant. ALL of whom need to lawyer up, and get ready for the fraud squad”.

Responding to those allegations, Napier Bell began by expressing much respect for the singer, writing yesterday: “Since last November my partner, Bjorn de Water, and I have managed Sinéad O’Connor. She’s an amazing, forceful, vibrant artist – opinionated, socially concerned and full of fire. Her last album contained some of the best songs she’s ever written, and she’s in the middle of writing a book about her life which is astonishingly well-constructed and observed”.

He went on: “She also writes frequently on Facebook; sometimes fiery rants, other times about music she likes or people she respects. For some time now she’s been telling her Facebook friends about problems with her health, her son’s ill-health, and about her financial losses from having had to cancel a South American tour in order to stay behind and take care of him. Fate and circumstance came together to cause these things to happen and throughout them Bjorn and I gave Sinéad carefully considered advice and acted with honesty and integrity”.

Then dealing with the allegations head on, he continued: “Earlier this week Sinéad wrote a post that accused us of doing otherwise. It was untrue, defamatory, and damaging. Through our lawyer we applied to Facebook to have the post removed. If it is, then without prejudice to our right to take further legal action for defamation if we feel it necessary, our preferred choice would be to leave things at that. We’ve enjoyed working with Sinéad – she’s a great artist, a caring mother, and for nine months was a good friend”.

As yet O’Connor’s posts remain on Facebook, so it remains to be seen if this matter goes legal, from either side.



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