USA TODAY
28 June 2000 

Handed by Kai Chai

Confused O'Connor throws another curve

By Elysa Gardner

Irish singer/songwriter Sinead O'Connor, who made
international news by coming out as a lesbian this
month, is now seeking to, in her own words,"set the
record straight - no pun intended."

The saga began when O'Connor told Niall Stokes, a
reporter for the Irish music magazine Hot Press,
"Though I have slept with women, I am much more
attracted to men."

After that quote ran in the magazine's June issue,
O'Connor, 33, wrote a letter to the editors, stating,
"I am a lesbian. I have not been comfortable with that
fact until recently. I have striven to be straight and
to hide myself. . . . I love men, but I prefer sex
with women." She reaffirmed that position in a highly
publicized interview with the American lesbian
magazine Curve.

But when the editors of The Sunday Independent, an
Irish newspaper, asked O'Connor to elaborate on her
sexual status, the singer wrote a letter explaining
that her previous comments had been honest but
"slightly confused" answers to personal questions that
had made her uncomfortable. Her answers had been
influenced, she added, by her loyalty to one female
ex-lover and her general belief that "there exists
only love, and when you fall in love with someone, it
really doesn't matter whether they are the same sex or
the 'opposite.'"

Following are excerpts from the letter she sent to
John Chambers, an editor for The Sunday Independent,
which published it June 18:

"That I have explored my sexuality is accurate and I
have no shame about that and would, if I fell in love
with a woman, have as few qualms about expressing it
as if I were a man. I have only ever been in love with
one woman. One other, years ago when I was 20, I
simply slept with selfishly for sexual exploratory
purposes. Though of course I loved her, I was not, as
they say, 'in love' with her. The one I was in love
with was a brief relationship conducted more recently
with a lovely American woman who was an angel to me
and saved my life in many ways and to whom I owe a
very great debt of love and gratitude. And whom I
still adore. Although we are no longer a couple, I
love her deeply. These are the only homosexual
experiences I have had so far. Of perhaps thirty
people I've been with since eleven years of age, two
have been women, the rest men. I am rarely attracted
to women but loved making love with the women I
loved."

She continues, "I believe it was overcompensating of
me to declare myself a lesbian. It was not a publicity
stunt. I was trying to make someone else feel better.
And have subsequently caused pain for myself.

"I am not in a box of any description. 
Love, Sinead O'Connor."