Arsenio Hall > Quotes

“Why don't you get your dick out of your ass and write me some fucking jokes?”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“As typical with his celebrity feuds, Arsenio fired the first shot, when, in 1989, Rosanne Barr published her autobiography, Roseanne: My Life As a Woman. ‘A lot of people will see her face on this book and be mad when they find out there ain’t no recipes inside,’ Arsenio had joked on the show. ‘It’s not a cookbook.
A Pocketful of Miracle Whip should be the title of her next book.
Her book says that her father was a slob. That’s what interests me. When you look at Roseanne, you would never know, huh?”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“ARSENIO HALL: Johnny Carson should have left The Tonight Show years ago. He’s mailing it in. He’s very boring.’
-1987, Cleveland Plaindealer interview (discussing the supposed "...architect of my dreams...")”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio Hall: Smart & Classy

“There are so many temptations out here in Hollywood, and I've got to live my life right and be a role model. I've got to wear a condom, not be promiscuously immoral, and keep cocaine out of my life.”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“But only a month after interviewing Madonna on his show, Arsenio was still seething, and publicly lashed out at the Material Girl, admitting, I could've crushed this girl’s world. And I could have done it. I’m a stand-up comic. I deal with hecklers for a living. I make people cry and run out of a club after heckling me. I know I can go off. I’m from the clubs, I’m from the smoke and the dope. I’m from the g-h-e-t-t-o.”
― Arsenio Hall

“Arsenio Hall repeatedly rebuked charges of sexism and misogyny (in the workplace), recalling how much he respects and likes women, since he was raised by three of them. As one former employee of The Arsenio Hall Show so pointedly summed it up: “I mean, really. How much respect do you have when you give women black dildos with a watch wrapped around them as Christmas presents? One of them didn’t think it was funny and promptly returned it. The others didn’t think it was funny, but they didn’t have the guts to give it back to him.”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“I had a joke where I said, ‘I watch Star Search sometimes, and my question is: What is Ed McMahon’s talent?”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“I want to be the Martin Luther King of comedy.”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“In the beginning Arsenio was a nice guy,” said a former show staff member. “But the more successful he became, the more spoiled and greedy he became; And the more successful the show got, the more arrogant he got. When he started out, he was happy to have any guest on the show that was available. Now he’s so arrogant he truly believes Warren Beatty is ‘lucky to have his ass on my couch,’ as he once told several of us.”

“Arsenio thinks he deserves bigger names,” another show staffer continues. “He doesn’t understand they’re guests. He thinks he’s doing them a favor, not vice versa. But the main thing about Arsenio is that he’s become very lazy where the show’s concerned.”

“He claims to watch the show three times after it’s taped? Bullshit. He doesn’t have time. He claims to do the research, the booking. He claims to do everything. But it’s arrogance out of control. He is given the introduction and the background, the pre-interview questions with answers, but he never reads the material. If he would just do the minimum (of work required), he would be fine, but he’s got that movie deal with Paramount, and believes he eventually coast on being the next Eddie Murphy.”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“I know what Spike Lee’s game is. He’s the new Malcolm X and everyone else is a money-grubbing hustler. It’s BS, that’s what it is. Spike would love to have my money. He’d love to have Eddie Murphy's money.”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir

“I did his show once,” said actress Anne-Marie Johnson, 31 (Hollywood Shuffle, In Living Color) “and I’ll never do it again because it’s a very nasty atmosphere.” Johnson plays the role of Althea Tibbs on NBC’s In the Heat of the Night. “It was terrible. You know how he abuses people — women, specifically. And women who don’t act like bimbos who want to sit on his lap, and, you know, take their bra off. It was very insulting.”

The unpleasantness began innocently enough, with show producer, Marla Kell Brown, suggesting that she remain with Hall even after her segment was finished. “She said, ‘Just sit on the couch with him and sit with the other guests, and just be yourself.’” Johnson remembered. “I said, ‘Great! It’ll be wonderful and warm.’” But no sooner did she walk out on stage than things went downhill fast. “So I go out there, and he’s shaking my hand, and the first thing he says to me is, ‘God, you are so skinny,’” recalled the slender, 5-foot, 10-inch Los Angeles-born actress. “That’s the first thing… The way he said it was just so… like it was the only thing he could possibly say.”
After that, said Johnson, the segment just got worse. She couldn’t help but feel offended when Hall repeatedly pestered her about recent relationships, antagonizing for not keeping with her Black boyfriend, and now dating a white man….

ANNE-MARIE: “He has a problem with (Black) women dating white guys,” said Johnson. “So I’m tap-dancing, trying to get out of that, and he looks away, off-stage, where no one was standing, pantomimes an affirmative nod – towards some imaginary stage manager – and looks back at me, insisting, ‘Well, your time’s up. Thank you very much. And I don’t like the way the light’s looking on you, so why don’t you just stand backstage, and watch from there.’“

Johnson then got up, “zombie-like,” and started walking backstage. The segment producers tried to corral her back towards the couch, apologizing for their boss’ behavior, but she had had it. “I said, ‘Never again’ …I wasn’t playing his game. They called me for like a year afterwards, ‘Please come, please come.’ And I said, ‘You will never, ever see me on that show again.’ And I’m sticking to it.”
― Arsenio Hall, Arsenio: A Memoir