A London coroner's office said on Tuesday that Irish singer Sinead O'Connor died of natural causes.
Ms O'Connor, 56, was found dead in a London apartment building in July. Shortly afterward, the local medical examiner announced that they would conduct an autopsy on her body.
In a brief statement Tuesday, the coroner said: “Ms. O'Connor died of natural causes.” The coroner said they had “therefore ceased their involvement in her death.”
Ms. O'Connor, best known for her rendition of Prince's “Nothing Compares 2 U,” became a global star in the 1990s – not just for her music but also for her political provocations on and off stage. Most memorably, Ms. O'Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II during a “Saturday Night Live” appearance in 1992 to protest the sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church.
In an assessment of Ms. O'Connor's career for The New York Times, pop critic Jon Caramanica said the singer was “something greater than a simple pop star.”
She “was a fervent moralist, an uncompromising voice of social progress, and someone who found fame and its eroded and glossed-over boundaries a kind of disease,” Caramanica wrote. “She was also a singer with wild gifts,” he added.