Sinead O'Connor Apologizes for Arsenio Hall Accusations

He's dropping his $5M lawsuit
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 23, 2017 12:45 AM CST
Sinead O'Connor Apologizes for Arsenio Hall Accusations
Sinead O'Connor performs on the Stravinski Hall stage at the 49th Montreux Jazz Festival, in Montreux, Switzerland, 2015.   (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

Arsenio Hall has dropped a $5 million defamation lawsuit accusing Sinead O'Connor of "recklessly spreading malicious, vile lies" following an apology from the singer. In now-deleted Facebook posts made weeks after Prince's death last year, O'Connor accused Hall of supplying the star with hard drugs over many years and of spiking her with drugs at a party. "Sinead has retracted and apologized for statements she made about Arsenio last year, which prompted his defamation lawsuit against her," Hall and O'Connor said in a joint statement to TMZ.

In posts made after the initial accusation in May last year, O'Connor dismissed the "laughable threats" in Hall's lawsuit and claimed to have reported him to the sheriff's office. "I apologize for my Facebook posts about Arsenio 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 said in a statement sent to ABC. "I sincerely apologize because those statements would be false, and I retract them unequivocally." (Lawyers are still battling over Prince's estate, which includes 18 vehicles and dozens of gold bars.)

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