Sinead O’Connor’s booking agent is taking her to court

Yesterday TMN reported Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor had made an official complaint against booking agent Rita Zappador and Modus In Rebus Booking Agents. Now, Zappador has said a defamation case will be brought to court.

Via two Facebook posts over the weekend, O’Connor claimed Zappador and Modus In Rebus blackmailed her, defrauding her for 18 months pay and offered her a fee of just €500 for three shows in Germany in May.

Now, in an email sent to TMN, Zappador has claimed O’Connor defamed her and the booking agency by publishing a page of her insurance contract.

“You should be aware that the pages showed (sic) in this post are a portion of an insurance contract policy and are therefore protected by the privacy law,” Zappador told TMN. “All these issues will be taken to a court for defamation.”

The page of the contract referred to by Zappador notes the total earned by O’Connor’s three shows was almost €48,000. Her band members were given €2,700 each, her crew €2,400 each, the agent received €11,200, and O’Connor €500.

In July O’Connor was forced to cancel her scheduled 2015 dates to care for her son, after he was diagnosed with a “life-threatening” illness. “So as an almost 49-year-old sole breadwinner, facing the need to cancel these shows and the South American shows has been the utmost stressful experience of my life, and to be honest I'm very proud of myself for being so strong,” she said in a statement.

In a Facebook poston August 14 O’Connor said she was “deliberately misled” by Zappador and Modus In Rebus and defrauded into handing over her fee “upon cancelling the South American tour due tomy son's life threatening medical condition.”

“Myself and my accountant were knowingly and deliberately misled by you into believing I was 'The Assured' in the cancellation insurance policy and was therefore legally obliged to hand over this money,” she said. “You in fact were 'The Assured'. I did not discover this fact until almost a month ago.”

O'Connor has filed a complaint with thefraud detection unit of An Gardai Siochana.

"An official complaint has been made by me to the Irish police against you," O'Connor wrote on Facebook,"for fraud against myself personally in the amount of approximately one-hundred and twenty thousand euro, almost the entire amount I earned for the last eighteen months' touring."