Strange Kind Of Woman: Sinead O’Connor resurfaces to claim Arsenio Hall was complicit in Prince’s death
Written by Jason Daniel Baker
It is a loathsome clash of personalities between what passed for cultural icons 25 years ago involving the legacy of a much-beloved, recently deceased rock ‘n’ roll legend. Unfinished business leftover from a time when phones were attached to walls and internet existed in a primitive form but almost none of us had access.
We had reality shows and boy bands. Just not as many. A fair number of classic rock bands active then who are now urgently defiling their respective legacies for short term profit were doing that less urgently and considerably less noticeably.
It was a realm where surveillance cameras and listening devices were less prolific. It was a time and place where secrets could more readily remain secret. Dark secrets found shadows to hide in. People said they saw things and talked about what they saw but the instrument for disseminating online it wasn’t available to most.
Arsenio Hall, unfunny comedian/bad actor/late night talk show host as well as former host of the MTV Video Music Awards peaked in popularity in the early 1990s with a TV program that featured ‘musical’ guests like MC Hammer and The New Kids On The Block and interviews with such stars for the ages as Andrew Dice Clay, Richard Grieco, and Vanilla Ice.
Hall has been accused of also having been a celebrity drug dealer and having supplied to the artist initially, formerly, and posthumously known as Prince. Use of opiates to dull back pain incurred during live performance have been the subject of conjecture as a cause of death since Prince’s passing on April 21st. Details of a police search warrant are sealed via court order.
Any rock star’s mysterious death draws a place in the media cycle which follows. Drugs are a fairly common cause and the authorities are under pressure to find out who dealt the lethal dose even before a toxicology report can confirm or refute suspicions. Fans, hangers-on, journalists, and anti-drug activists are quick to point fingers but sometimes others will.
Hall’s accuser is Sinead O’Connor. She was a passable singer and mediocre songwriter who made a name for herself in the late 1980s and early 1990s by adopting the hairstyle and dress (coupled contrarily with a glamorous magazine cover make-up style) of a sexy religious cult member that security wasn’t able to chase out of an airport.
After the gimmick of her incoherent fashion statement passed and people came to judge her on her actual music she faded into near obscurity. Much of her appeal was derived from what she might have become if she had matured as an artist if not as person. With the enormous potential that she showed she appeared poised to make an inevitable and huge contribution to rock ‘n’ roll. But the potential was never realized and she remains one of the most puzzling cases of arrested development in music.
Both Hall and O’Connor, at the height of their popularity at the same time as Milli Vanilli won a Grammy, have occupied seldom used drawers in the “Where Are They Now?” file cabinet over the past couple of decades. Their current feud coupled with their respective roles in history marking time in popular culture somehow evokes for me the image of a leisure suit attacking a lava lamp.
“I’m more amused than I’ve ever dreamed a person could be and look forward very much to how hilarious it will be watching him trying to prove me wrong,” O’Connor wrote in a Facebook post following Hall’s launch of his $5 million libel suit against her after she posted on the same website on May 2nd indirectly informing on him to America’s Drug Enforcement Agency whom she apparently believes took her statement seriously.
Included in the accusation that Hall supplied drugs to Prince “over the decades” was the anecdote that Hall spiked a drink with drugs that O’Connor was given at a party after a Grammy’s ceremony at Eddie Murphy’s residence. She also expressed a thorough dislike of Hall stating “He can suck my dick. That is if he isn’t too busy sucking someone else’s dick.”
Having somehow seized a place in Prince’s legacy by having covered his song ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ (her biggest hit) and claiming he assaulted her in a supposed confrontation Prince always denied happened, O’Connor had the nerve to cast judgment upon those that want his unreleased music to be circulated publicly.
It fits in with a long trail of flakiness blazed by one of the most eccentric individuals in popular music – a field where flighty conduct is often par for the course. Emerging periodically to offer bizarre statements which are at times contradictory O’Connor has occasionally made statements which reflected a reality beyond those within her warped imagination. Yet her penchant for hyperbole eroded the credibility of even those utterances.
How much of her take on Prince’s relationship with Arsenio Hall can even be considered as potentially factual? It would make a kind of sense if Hall’s career rise was due to a sideline as a candyman (few thought Bill Cosby was a serial rapist until women came forward) to the stars. He had no discernible talent and the audience on his appalling show always appeared inebriated by something the few times I watched it. But idle conjecture is not evidence. Most of us know the difference even if O’Connor doesn’t.
Clearly Hall was a man born to suffer fools if you look at many of the guests on his talk show. He also won Season 5 of Celebrity Apprentice by suffering some of the world’s biggest fools. Why then the moral outrage at the accusation leveled at him by O’Connor? It is understandable that he would be angry if it invited unwarranted police scrutiny into his affairs.
But would it also be understandable if he took legal action to keep his name in the public realm? In a bizarre turn of events involving people your kids likely can’t believe actually exist and were famous back in the day we have unlikely public figures once again getting yet another 15 minutes of fame on the back of dead acquaintance Prince whilst his actual family may be left out of his estate because he neglected (the final eventuality is hardly top of mind for every 57 year old) to leave a will.
A comeback might be sparked for Hall and O’Connor. Hall might get a gig hosting a trade show in Kalamazoo with Kato Kaelin or Dustin Diamond. O’Connor might get to cut the ribbon at a shopping mall opening in Kilkenny. Unflattering actions can emerge if has-beens try to claw their way back into a spotlight where neither really belonged.
The imprint upon Prince’s legacy would appear to be minor. In fact contrasted with Hall and O’Connor one suddenly appreciates his talent, integrity and relative normalcy that much more.