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Sinead O’Connor retracts Arsenio Hall drug comments

Posted at 3:11 PM, Feb 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-02-23 15:11:50-05

Sinead O’Connor has apologized for saying Arsenio Hall supplied the late singer Prince with drugs.

The singer and the comedian released a joint statement to CNN on Thursday.

“Arsenio Hall and Sinead O’Connor announce that Sinead has retracted and apologized for statements she made about Arsenio last year, which prompted his defamation lawsuit against her, and the lawsuit has been resolved,” the statement said.

O’Connor accused Hall, who was friends with Prince, of giving him drugs.

“Two words for the DEA investigating where Prince got his drugs over the decades … Arsenio Hall,” O’Connor wrote in a Facebook post back in May that she later deleted. “Anyone imagining Prince was not a long time hard drug user is living in cloud cuckoo land.”

Prince died from an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl in April.

Hall responded by filing a $5 million suit against O’Connor.

“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,” O’Connor’s statement said. “I sincerely apologize because those statements would be false, and I retract them unequivocally.”

An attorney for Hall said in light of O’Connor’s retraction and apology, the lawsuit will be dismissed.