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The lawsuit denies Sinead's claim, and adds: "Desperate, attention-seeker Sinead O'Connor maliciously published outlandish defamatory lies about comedian Arsenio Hall, falsely accusing him of supplying illegal 'hard drugs' 'over the decades' to...Prince, and of spiking her with drugs once years ago."
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The National ENQUIRER soon revealed why Arsenio was particularly outraged
over Sinead's claims — which still remain on her Facebook page. His ex-girlfriend
Oneta Watson had told The ENQUIRER that Arsenio gave up doing any drugs "when he got his show because he felt he was a role model for young people." Oneta added that Arsenio went on to spend $100,000 to convert a former crack house, before "renovating it for use by a church."
But the former talk-show host has still had to fight rumors of drug use. The ENQUIRER revealed in 1993 that insiders questioned Arsenio's claims to be drug-free. According to one longtime associate, Arsenio was a "heavy user" of cocaine throughout the 1980s. And a former staffer says he was still using coke as recently as January 1992.
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"I'd say he had a habit in the 80s," a former participant in Arsenio's late night/early morning cokefests confided. "He liked to drink, too. And when he'd drink and do drugs, he could get real nasty, real fast. He has a bad temper. He'd get real insulting and rude to people."
According to another former associate, Arsenio sometimes got high on cocaine before taping his show in the '80s — but more often after taping: "He always had at least one, sometimes two shots of Jack Daniels prior to doing the show. And yes, I've seen him occasionally do coke along with the alcohol, which is what I think creates his terrible mood swings."
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But when he was in the public eye, Arsenio (seen here with PRince during his talk show's brief revival in 2013) worked hard to seem drug-free and totally sober. He was even the national ambassador of DARE, the nonprofit Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. Arsenio would visit DARE classrooms and tape public service announcements blasting drug use.
"It's not easy being Arsenio Hall," he admitted in the '90s. "There are so many temptations in Hollywood. I've got to be a role model. I've got to wear a condom, not be promiscuous and keep cocaine out of my life. If I get busted, if I end up in jail, it would be devastating — especially for a kid to look and say, 'He was the one I thought I could trust!'"
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