Dolores O’Riordan’s mother has revealed that the star was tormented by fame before her tragic death earlier this year.
The 46-year-old Cranberries star was found dead on January 15 in a hotel in London, where she had gone for a recording session.
Eileen O’Riordan has also warned youngsters of the downfalls of fame in a heart-breaking interview.
Eileen said that Dolores never found fame easy to deal with and described the difficulty her daughter had in trying to live a normal life.
She told the Irish Sun: “It’s against nature, isn’t it? It can bring its own stresses and when you are very famous then you have no life. You make true sacrifices really.
“She could go nowhere. Anywhere she went she was recognised – anywhere in the world!”
At the height of her success, Dolores was a global star thanks to a string of hits such as Zombie, Linger and Dreams. The Cranberries sold over 40 million albums worldwide.
However, the success came at a price and her life was put under the microscope – especially during troubling times such as her divorce from her husband of 20 years in 2014.
When Dolores died she left behind three children – Taylor, 20, Molly 17 and Dakota, 13.
Eileen added that she hopes her grandchildren don’t follow in their mother’s footsteps and instead look to enjoy life outside the public eye.
She said: “When people say that Dolores’ children, my grandchildren, would follow in her footsteps – I would hope not. Keep things a bit simpler.”
One upside to Dolores’ fame was that her music was able to help people in ways that she could never have imagined.
Eillen said: “I know she did an awful lot of good in her life – no one knows the amount of good she did. All the letters I have with people telling me, ‘I wouldn’t be here only for Dolores. She saved me’.”
This is something that has helped Eileen to find strength in the months since her daughter passed.
She and her daughter were close and had spoken on the phone just hours before Delores died. They had also spent the previous weekend together in the house Dolores grew up in.
Eileen said: “I was talking to her at two o’clock in the morning. We would be chatting all the time. I got a call around nine o’clock the same morning that something was wrong.
“It was a couple of hours before I knew what happened. It didn’t sink in.
“Immediately when I knew she was dead I wanted to make sure they got a priest to her. The priest went to the morgue. I didn’t fly over.
“There had been only one day since Dolores died that I thought I wouldn’t be able to go on.
“Just once, since she died, nothing would console me. But I always have someone to turn to”.
Written by Michael Kehoe @michaelcalling
