By Robyn Collins
About a week after Prince died in Minnesota, Sinead O’Connor posted on Facebook that the singer was a “long time hard drug user” who “got his drugs over the decades” from Arsenio Hall, implying that he had contributed to the downfall and subsequent death of Prince last April.
The comedian denied the claims and his reps filed a $5 million defamation lawsuit that described O’Connor as a “desperate, attention-seeker … now known perhaps as much for her bizarre, unhinged internet rants as for her music,” reports TMZ.
Related: Sinead O’Connor Reported Missing
In response, O’Connor wrote another inflammatory post: “I do not like drugs killing musicians. And I do not like Arsenio Hall. He can suck my d—. That is if he isn’t too busy sucking someone else’s d—.” she wrote.
Now, almost a year later, she has retracted her statements.
“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. I sincerely apologize because those statements would be false, and I retract them unequivocally.”
O’Connor, whose most famous hit was a cover of a Prince composition “Nothing Compares 2 U,” has battled with mental health problems in recent years.
All of her original Facebook posts regarding Hall have been deleted and Hall’s representatives have reportedly said their client will file to dismiss the lawsuit.
