Sinéad O’Connor apologizes for Arsenio Hall drug claims

Sinéad O’Connor is sorry for saying Arsenio Hall was a drug pusher for Prince — or at least she’s saying as much to avoid a lawsuit.

In May, Hall, 61, sued O’Connor for $5 million over a Facebook post in which she wrote, “Two words for the DEA investigating where Prince got his drugs . . . Arsenio Hall (a.k.a. Prince’s and Eddie Murphy’s bitch). Anyone imagining Prince was not a longtime hard drug user is living in cloud cuckoo land. Arsenio I’ve reported you.”

On Wednesday, O’Connor, 50, released a statement retracting the claims.

“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,” she told TMZ Wednesday.

“I sincerely apologize because those statements would be false,” she added, “and I retract them unequivocally.”

Before her mea culpa, the “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer scoffed at Hall’s lawsuit, writing on Facebook in May, “I’m more amused than I’ve ever dreamed … and look forward very much to how hilarious it will be watching him trying to prove me wrong.”

“I’m also very happy to notice that the DEA have taken me seriously enough to be thoroughly questioning all of Prince’s friends and aides from the last thirty years as to his KNOWN history of hard drug use and where he obtained his drugs,” she continued. “I do not like drugs killing musicians. And I do not like Arsenio Hall.”