Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard Honor Sinèad O'Connor on SNL 50th Special with 'Nothing Compares 2 U' Cover

 

Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard. Photo: 

NBC

Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard teamed up once again for Saturday Night Live.

On Sunday, Feb. 16 during SNL50: The Anniversary Special, the singers performed an emotional duet of the late Sinèad O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U." Cyrus and Howard previously sang "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen during the homecoming concert on Friday, Feb. 14.

The soulful 1985 song was originally written by Prince and was part of O'Connor's 1990 album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. O'Connor, who died in 2023, is part of the sketch show's history, appearing on Saturday Night Live in 1992 as the musical guest.

Instead of singing one of her own songs, O'Connor opted for an a cappella version of Bob Marley's "War" and asked the camera operators to slowly zoom in on her face while she sang.

Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard.

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At the end of the song, she looked into the camera and said, "Fight the real enemy." She then held up a picture of Pope John Paul II and tore it apart on live television as a response to the Catholic Church's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse of children.

Her performance became infamous in SNL's history and the part of her performance where she ripped up the pope's pictures wasn't shown in the episode's reruns.

Speaking to PEOPLE in 2021, O'Connor said that she was "well aware there would be" backlash. "I understood it because we joke in Ireland or in Europe that Americans, they don't think anything happened until it happened to them. So I totally understood. I didn't blame anyone."

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She wrote in her 2021 memoir Rememberings that she didn't regret her actions on the sketch show.

"A lot of people say or think that tearing up the pope's photo derailed my career. That's not how I feel about it," she wrote. "I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”

Sinèad O'Connor in 1992. 

Yvonne Hemsey/Getty

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In the 2025 documentary Ladies and Gentleman...50 Years of SNL Music, Lorne Michaels spoke about O'Connor's actions. "There was a part of me that admired the bravery of what she'd done and also the absolute sincerity of it," he said.

SNL50: The Anniversary Special is airing live on NBC and streaming onPeacock.