More than 24 hours after she was reported missing, Sinead O’Connor was safely located, according to police in a Chicago suburb.
“She is safe and is no longer listed as a missing/endangered person,” the Wilmette Police Department said in an email.
Police officials did not immediately comment on the circumstances surrounding the mercurial Irish singer’s disappearance.
Wilmette police had been “seeking to check the well-being” of O’Connor, Sgt. Michael Robinson said earlier Monday. “A caller has expressed concern for her well-being and no other information is available,” Robinson said at the time.
O’Connor had last been seen around 6.a.m. Sunday when she reportedly left the Wilmette area to go on a bike ride, according to authorities. Wilmette Police Chief Brian King told the Chicago Tribune that the department was contacted around 1 p.m.
O’Connor has spoken publicly in the past about her mental health struggles, including suicide attempts in 1999 and 2012. Last year, O’Connor posted a message on her Facebook page that suggested that she was taking her life and came after several social media posts about personal troubles.
“I have taken an overdose,” she wrote in the November message. “There is no other way to get respect. I am not at home, I’m at a hotel, somewhere in ireland, under another name. If I wasn’t posting this, my kids and family wouldn’t even find out.”
O’Connor went on to write about problems she was having with her family.
“I’m invisible. I don’t matter a shred to anyone. No one has come near me. I’ve died a million times already with the pain of it,” she wrote.
Later that day, police in Ireland confirmed that they had found the singer “safe and sound” and said that she was receiving medical care.
The Wilmette Beacon reported that O’Connor “has been staying with friends in Wilmette for several weeks.”
On Saturday, O’Connor said on her public Facebook page that she was “Heading Down South for several weeks” and suggested that she was planning to protest North Carolina’s “bathroom bill.”
On Sunday, the same day she disappeared in Illinois, a note appeared on O’Connor’s Facebook page, apparently alluding to a familial legal issue.
Police, however, have not spoken about the social media post or said whether it had any connection to the artist’s disappearance.
The singer-songwriter found herself back in the headlines following Prince’s death last month. O’Connor – whose megahit “Nothing Compares 2 U” was written by Prince – took to Facebook and accused Arsenio Hall of supplying drugs to the late singer.
Hall is suing O’Connor for libel.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Elahe Izadi, Lindsey Bever
