Arsenio Hall is suing Sinead O’Connor for defamation after the Irish singer claimed the former late-night talk show host plied Prince with drugs over decades.
In the suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Hall seeks $5 million and slams the outspoken singer as a “desperate, attention-seeker (who) has maliciously published outlandish defamatory lies” about him.
He denied O’Connor’s claims that he had provided the late pop superstar with “hard drugs” and even spiked her with drugs in the past.
O’Connor, 49, made the accusation in a Facebook post Monday as reports surfaced that Prince allegedly suffered from a prescription painkiller addiction before his unexpected death April 21 at his Paisley Park estate. In addition, 911 logs related to the late star reveal that a woman placed a call in 2011 saying she was concerned about Prince’s alleged “cocaine habits.”
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O’Connor wrote: “Two words for the DEA investigating where prince got his drugs over the decades…. Arsenio Hall (AKA Prince’s and Eddie Murphy’s b—h).”
“Anyone imagining prince was not a long time hard drug user is living in cloud cuckoo land,” she added.
She followed up the post with another rambling tirade on Tuesday referring to Hall as having “unfathomable narcissism.”
A longtime attorney for the “Purple Rain” musician, however, has disputed the reports of drug use, calling any such claims “foolish.” O’Connor knew Prince from covering his song, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” in 1990; her version was a worldwide hit. In later interviews, however, she said that she only met Prince a couple of times, and that they did not get along. Prince, meanwhile, had performed on Hall’s late-night show. The TV host and actor added that he has not had contact with O’Connor in 25 years and that her “malicious and reckless lies” have “spread like wildfire across the media throughout the United States and the world.” O’Connor did not immediately respond to the lawsuit Friday. This article first appeared on NBCNews.com.
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