Sinéad O’Connor Found By Rob Smittix Passed Out In Albany NY Decades Ago

Because the internet was not a thing yet, I can’t seem to find the actual dates online for this story but if you were in the Albany, NY area in the early 1990’s then you may remember parts of what I’m about to share with you.

When I (Rob Smittix) was a kid I wanted to be a great skateboarder but back then my parents didn’t know any better and I was only gifted K-Mart skateboards. If you’ve ever owned a cheap skateboard then you know the struggle of wheels that would only spin for a second without a kick or a push. My best friend Joe and I were around 12 or 13 years old and we brought our cheap ass skateboards with us to the Empire State Plaza in Albany to skate poorly. We ended up going up the huge staircase at the NYS Museum and began skating in the back of the building. If you’ve been in the back of the museum there are 2 small marble spiral staircases, this is where the story really begins.

Joe and I were curious as cats to see where these spiral staircases led, so we went up the east side stairs only to find that they are not publicly used and they lead to closed doors. However, at the top of the stairs we did find something that we didn’t expect to see. There was a completely passed out or even dead bald-headed women laying on the ground at the top of these stairs with an empty bottle of what I believe was Jack Daniels Old No. 7, if my memory serves me correctly. We jokingly called this woman Sinéad O’Connor because she looked just like her. We gently nudged her with our feet to see if we could get her to wake up. She didn’t wake up at all, she didn’t even respond physically to our nudges. Joe decided to take her pulse and felt a heartbeat. We figured that she must be completely inebriated and just needed to sleep it off, so we went about our day.

Later that same night after supper the local news was on and a story that young Joe and I had not heard about until then came on the screen. Obviously I’m paraphrasing but it went something like this: Sinéad O’Connor who was performing in Albany last night did something to piss off the Hilton Hotel in downtown and she was kicked out! Yeah they definitely didn’t say it like that but you get the point. Joe and I never in our lives thought for a second that we actually found the real Sinéad O’Connor, we just thought it was a look-alike. It was now confirmed that we did in fact discover a real life passed out drunk Sinéad!

I can’t remember if this was before or after the SNL incident when Sinéad ripped the photo of the pope but it was certainly around the same time period. Sinéad was troubled and probably struggled with a lot of demons over the years, that doesn’t diminish her talent. I will always be a fan of her music and may she rest in peace.