‘Saturday Night Live’ Fans Are Disappointed That Miley Cyrus Didn’t Pull a Sinéad O’Connor and Tear Up a Photo of Trump

Nothing compares to Sinéad O'Connor — Lorne Michaels made sure of it.

SNL50 is underway, and following a half-century of Saturday Night Live’s cultural domination, numerous iconic moments and headline-making controversies have already made their reappearance during the live celebration. Notably, Norm Macdonald’s famous feud with O.J. Simpson and subsequent firing got a shout-out during the special anniversary version of “Weekend Update,” given that Norm, O.J. and Don Ohlmeyer are all deceased and one of the uglier SNL sagas is finally firmly in the past.

Speaking of the dearly departed and SNL spinelessness, one of the musical interludes raised eyebrows among those in the know, as Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard performed banned SNL musical guest Sinéad O'Connor’s smash-hit single “Nothing Compares 2 U” just a year and a half after the artist’s passing. Not only did SNL50 seem to gloss over what happened in the aftermath of Sinéad O’Connor’s scandalous, iconoclastic performance on SNL back in October 1992, but when the performance closed, many fans were left waiting for that O’Connor-inspired, picture-perfect moment:

As SNL and Sinéad O’Connor’s fans know well, at the conclusion of O’Connor’s second and final appearance as the musical guest on SNL, the Irish singer, songwriter and activist held up a photo of Pope John Paul II to the camera and tore it to pieces, urging viewers to “fight the real enemy.” O’Connor, a victim of the Catholic Church’s Magdalene laundries during her youth, faced massive backlash and scorn for her SNL statement, and, on the very next week’s episode, Joe Pesci used his opening monologue to denounce O’Connor and claim that he would have beaten her if he had been in attendance the prior Saturday.

While SNL has never apologized for how it handled the aftermath of O’Connor’s performance — including how Michaels openly threw O’Connor under the bus to the press, calling her “selfish” and “dishonest” — Cyrus and Howard’s rendition of O’Connor’s biggest hit tonight reads like it’s supposed to be some sort of half-hearted tribute to the late icon. However, this nod to O’Connor without an associated political statement shows that SNL still can’t (or won’t) embrace her legacy and its connection to SNL history. 

But, unlike the show itself, SNL fans aren’t shy about defending O’Connor and her message. “Miley should have ripped up a picture of Trump,” one of the many disappointed SNL and O’Connor supporters wrote in the SNL subreddit's live thread for SNL 50.

“Really gonna do a Sinead song with a fascist as President and NOT rip something up...,” another concurred.

However, other SNL fans argued that the SNL 50th anniversary party isn’t the place to try and recreate such an iconic and powerful political moment. After all, as one fan pointed out, “Guys, it’s 2025. How do you rip up a .img file?”