Lily Allen 'incensed' as she slams 'spineless' Sinead O'Connor tributes

Lily Allen has slammed the outpouring of tributes to Sinead O'Connor after her death, calling them "spineless" for not having stood up for her while she was alive.

Nothing Compares 2 U singer O'Connor died in London last week aged 56 and her passing has sparked a wave of tributes to her musical talent and activism – but Allen has called them out for being disingenuous.

The singer, who is currently starring in West End show The Pillowman, shared her annoyance on Twitter where she pointed out that people had not been so forthcoming in their support for O'Connor before her death – but on Monday afternoon appeared to have deleted her Twitter account.

On Sunday, before her account disappeared Allen had tweeted: "It’s hard not to feel incensed when there are so many people posting about Sinead and how fearless she was, people who would never in a million years align themselves with anybody who stood for something or had anything remotely controversial to say.

"It’s so spineless. If you can’t stand up for people in life don’t do it in death."

Read more: Sinead O'Connor boycotts Woman's Hour after 'offensive and misogynistic' interview

O'Connor's activism included speaking out against the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, tearing up a photo of the Pope in protest on Saturday Night Live, and writing to him to be excommunicated before converting to Islam.

The Irish singer had lost her 17-year-old son Shane to suicide in January 2022, with O'Connor cancelling her tour that year and postponing a new album indefinitely.

Allen is not the only musician to have spoken out in anger about tributes to O'Connor. Morrissey wrote a lengthy blog post labelling commentary about her death as "sterile slop".

He also added: "There is a certain music industry hatred for singers who don’t ‘fit in’ (this I know only too well) and they are never praised until death – when, finally, they can’t answer back.

"The cruel playpen of fame gushes with praise for Sinead today … with the usual moronic labels of 'icon' and 'legend'. You praise her now ONLY because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you.

"The press will label artists as pests because of what they withhold … and they would call Sinead sad, fat, shocking, insane … oh but not today! Music CEOs who had put on their most charming smile as they refused her for their roster are queuing-up to call her a 'feminist icon', and 15 minute celebrities and goblins from hell and record labels of artificially aroused diversity are squeezing onto Twitter to twitter their jibber-jabber … when it was YOU who talked Sinead into giving up … because she refused to be labelled, and she was degraded, as those few who move the world are always degraded.

"Why is ANYBODY surprised that Sinead O’Connor is dead?"