Sinéad O’Connor: Miley and I Created an Important Conversation About Mental Health

The singer recently sat down with TIME to answer a few questions

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Sinéad O’Connor recently took time out of her busy touring schedule to drop by the TIME offices and discuss her advocacy about mental-health issues, her thoughts on music and religion and, yes, her recent public back-and-forth with Miley Cyrus.

Selections from that long conversation are featured in this week’s issue of TIME, but take a look at the video above for more of O’Connor’s thoughts on the good that came out of the Miley Cyrus conversation:

I know this issue [of the way we talk about mental health] came up recently when you tried to give some advice to Miley Cyrus. In the initial letter that you wrote, the topic of the way the music business prostitutes young female artists was part of that letter. Was there a moment in your own life where you learned that the music business was not on your side? 

Every single day of your life. The music business is corrupt, a spiritually corrupt arena. It’s full of nothing but vampires and pimps, honestly. You couldn’t understand it unless you were in it. The only way to survive it is to love music. I’ve known it all along. I think what was more important really that came out of the Miley thing was this issue of being able to conversate about how mental health and human rights is now. I think she was actually very helpful. I think the two of us, without meaning to, did quite a good job in terms of creating conversation about something really, really important.

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Read the full 10 Questions interview in this week’s issue of TIME.