Its says on this page that Comet Lovejoy was same scenario as Ison

[tenbyfifty]

at the bottom of the page it says

 "In 2011 the comet Lovejoy skimmed the surface of the sun, passing eight times closer than Ison. It too faded dramatically but then survived to develop a new tail as it sped away from the sun."

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/29/comet-ison-survive-encounter-sun-earth

so it ain't over till its over.

[ronin]

One aspect may be that even before Ison went round the sun there was talk of it possibly breaking up along the path in, which makes me suspect that the structure was already identified as a bit unstable. They were observing it for a year previously

The sun will have really stressed it and so it could well make sense that some but not all has survived and that it could have become more then one item. They may be the chance to see a few "small" comet fragments exiting the sun, instead of the better, and more impressive, one big bit.