Sinéad O'Connor Apologizes for Claiming Arsenio Hall Supplied Prince With Drugs

Comedian filed a $5 million libel lawsuit against her

By Francesca Bacardi Feb 23, 2017 3:50 PMTags
Sinead O'Connor, Arsenio Hall, PrinceStefania D'Alessandro/Getty Images, Paras Griffin/BET/Getty Images for BET, Lester Cohen/WireImage

Sinéad O'Connor is backtracking after claiming comedian Arsenio Hall gave Prince drugs.

The Irish singer took to Facebook shortly after Prince's April 21 death to make the allegations against Hall. "Two words for the DEA investigating where prince got his drugs over the decades.... Arsenio Hall (AKA Prince's and Eddie Murphy's bitch)...Arsenio I've reported you to the Carver County Sherrif's office. Expect their call. They are aware you spiked me years ago at Eddie Murphy's house. You best get tidying your man cave. [sic]."

In response the Coming to America actor filed a $5 million libel lawsuit against O'Connor. "Desperate, attention-seeker Sinéad O'Connor has maliciously published outlandish defamatory lies about comedian Arsenio Hall," the documents stated. "The malicious statements made by O'Connor are absolutely false and O'Connor's heinous accusations that Hall engaged in this criminal conduct are despicable, fabricated lies."

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The "Nothing Compares 2 U" singer spoke out shortly after Hall filed his lawsuit and maintained she was right. "I'm more amused than I've ever dreamed a person could be and look forward very much to how hilarious it will be watching him trying to prove me wrong," she wrote to Entertainment Weekly before posting on her Facebook page.

"I'm also very happy to notice that the DEA has taken me seriously enough to be thoroughly questioning all of Prince's friends and aides from the last thirty years as to his history of hard drug use and where he obtained his drugs. I do not like drugs killing musicians. And I do not like Arsenio Hall."

But now O'Connor, 50, is retracting her various statements.

"I apologize for my Facebook posts about Arsenio Hall to the extent that anyone thought I was accusing him of acting as Prince's drug dealer and supplying him with illegal hard drugs, or insinuating that Arsenio had something to do with Prince's death," she said in a statement Wednesday. "I sincerely apologize because those statements would be false, and I retract them unequivocally."

Hall's lawyers will be dismissing the lawsuit as a result of the apology.