She lost her son of 17 years only 5 months ago. With no additional details, I know where my mind goes.
Edit: whatever article I read said 5 months ago, but that appears to have been written some time ago. Plenty of articles stating that Shane died in Jan/2022:
> I’ve decided to follow my son. There is no point living without him. Everything I touch, I ruin. I only stayed for him. And now he’s gone,” she wrote on an unverified Twitter account linked to her official account.
> Shane died in January 2022. A week later, following a series of tweets in which she indicated that she was going to kill herself, O'Connor was hospitalised.
She's announced she was going to do it before and to be fair she's always had more than her fair share of mental troubles, sadly. As someone who is also cursed with those I know how hard that can be and I didn't even lose a child.
Withholding the cause is what leads to speculation and I don't think it's a bad guess in this case.
Personally I think it's better if they just announced it because believe it or not something like this can also lead to good things. Because it can make people think, realise these things happen and notice the signs in people around them.
And say what you want about her, but nobody ever said she was one for wavering. In everything she did she committed to and knew all about owning consequences.
If she was suicidal, and she had the track record, she was well able to have follow through on this also.
Whatever you believe, just for her sake, I genuinely hope she's now reunited with her son to get some peace.
There would have been no speculation if the family had stated an uncontroversial cause of death. Instead they "requested privacy", which means it was likely something people would have judged her for.
Edit: whatever article I read said 5 months ago, but that appears to have been written some time ago. Plenty of articles stating that Shane died in Jan/2022:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=shane+oconnor+wikipedia&ia=...