Sinéad O’Connor apologises to Arsenio Hall over Prince drug comments

Comedian and chat show host drops $5m defamation lawsuit against O’Connor

Singer Sinéad O’Connor has apologised to US comedian and talk show host Arsenio Hall over claims she had made against Hall in the wake of the death of pop star Prince in 2016

Hall had filed a $5 million (€4.4 million) defamation suit over O'Connor's claims in a since-deleted Facebook post that he allegedly provided drugs to Prince, who died of an opiate overdose.

The Irish singer told TMZ website that she "has retracted and apologised for statements she made about Arsenio last year".

"I apologise 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 (51) said in a statement to TMZ. "I sincerely apologise because those statements would be false, and I retract them unequivocally." O'Connor also posted the TMZ story on  her Facebook page.

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Hall's publicist confirmed to ABC News that the lawsiut will be dropped.

According to papers filed by Hall's legal team in Los Angeles in May 2016, "desperate, attention seeker Sinead O'Connor has maliciously published outlandish defamatory lies about comedian Arsenio Hall".

O'Connor had reportedly written  in a since-deleted Facebook post: "Arsenio, I've reported you to the Carver County Sheriff's office. Expect their call.

“You best get tidying your man cave.”