The late Kris Kristofferson discussed his special connection with Sinéad O'Connor - forged during the controversy around her appearance on Saturday Night Live in October 1992 - when he appeared on RTÉ One's Saturday Night with Miriam in August 2010.
It was Kristofferson who comforted O'Connor at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York's Madison Square Garden in October 1992 when the crowd booed her amid the fallout from the Dubliner tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live on US television the previous week.
"Well, it was Bob Dylan's birthday, I can't remember what birthday," Kristofferson told host O'Callaghan. "They were celebrating it at Madison Square Garden, I think.
"Sinéad had just recently on Saturday Night Live torn up a picture of The Pope in a gesture that I thought [was] very misunderstood. And she came out and got booed.
"I went out. They told me to get her off the stage and I said, 'I'm not about to do [that]. I went out and I said, 'Don't let the bastards get you down'. And she said, 'I'm not down' - and she sang.
"It was very courageous. It just seemed to me wrong booing that little girl out there, but she's always had courage."
On Saturday Night with Miriam, Kristofferson and O'Connor, who died in July 2023, duetted on Kristofferson's classic song Help Me Make It Through the Night.
