Riemannian metrics with singularities are considered on the $2$-sphere of revolution. The analysis of such singularities is motivated by examples stemming from mechanics and related to projections of higher dimensional (regular) sub-Riemannian distributions. An unfolding of the metrics in the form of an homotopy from the canonical metric on $\SS^2$ is defined which allows to analyze the singular case as a limit of standard Riemannian ones. A bifurcation of the conjugate locus for points on the singularity is finally exhibited.