Joe Pesci says he “would have slapped” Sinéad O’Connor in viral resurfaced clip

Joe Pesci has been criticised after a Saturday Night Live clip in which he said he “would have slapped” Sinéad O’Connor resurfaced.

The Goodfellas actor appeared on the show back in October 1992, one week after the Irish singer, who died earlier this week.

O’Connor infamously performed Bob Marley’s ‘War’ during her performance in which she ripped up a photo of the pope and replaced the song’s lyric “racism” with “child abuse”. She ended the performance by saying “Fight the real enemy,”  and would later go on to explain the move was in protest of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

During Pesci’s opening monologue the following week, the actor addressed the controversy, saying: “Before we start the show, there’s a little matter I wanna clear up. There was an incident on the show last week: Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of the pope, and I thought that was wrong, so I asked someone to paste it back together.”

He then presented the photo to applause from the audience, before adding: “I mean why should I let it bother me, right? It wasn’t my show. But I’ll tell you one thing, she was very lucky it wasn’t my show, because if it was my show, I would have gave her such a smack.”

The resurfaced clip has resulted in a backlash on Twitter, with one user writing: “Fuck Joe Pesci and everyone who was involved with this.”

“I never saw this clip in response to Sinead at the time. This is so hideous,” one person wrote in response, with an additional user stating: “Damn. I’ve never seen this clip. He threatened to slap Sinead O’Connor / Shuhada’ Sadaqat for telling the truth on Saturday night tv, and the crowd clapped. Vile.”

Another added: “One very disturbing thing to remember about the SNL incident with Sinead O’Connor is that on the next week’s show, Joe Pesci came out and basically fantasized about physically assaulting her and the audience cheered.”

Also, fuck Joe Pesci and everyone who was involved with this. pic.twitter.com/AUICgPMSpI

— David J (@DamJef) July 26, 2023

One very disturbing thing to remember about the SNL incident with Sinead O’Connor is that on the next week’s show, Joe Pesci came out and basically fantasized about physically assaulting her and the audience cheered.

— Mike G (@goedharted) July 27, 2023

Remember when Sinead O’Connor stood up to the abuses of the catholic church & the industry cancelled her.

And that creep weird guy joe pesci or whatever threatened to assault her.

And she was right. And they kept abusing for decades.

Yeah we do.
❤️‍????RIP lion hearted woman

— dana atwood (@statesofgrace) July 27, 2023

Following the incident at the time, Madonna also mocked O’Connor by ripping up a photo of a sex offender and saying “Fight the real enemy” and Frank Sinatra called O’Connor “one stupid broad”.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police yesterday (July 27) confirmed that O’Connor was found unresponsive at her home in London and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Tributes were paid from across the industry to O’Connor, including from Garbage, Billy Corgan, Michael Stipe and Ice-T.

However, Morrissey later criticised the industry response, suggesting it was hypocritical considering the lack of support O’Connor had for her actions – including protesting sexual abuse in the Catholic Church live on television – while she was alive.