Arsenio Hall reveals he lost his temper on the Paramount lot when he was stopped by security over stolen equipment – and suggests it was racially motivated.
In “Arsenio: A Memoir,” out April 7, the former talk show host, now 70, recalls how someone stole “a keyboard, some instruments, a few amps” from Michael Wolff’s 1992 “Arsenio Hall Show.”
Hall reported the theft to the studio. But that night, when he left the place with his assistant, known as J Dub, the security guard stopped him.
“We have to search your car,” the guard told him.
Hall was angry.
“‘Look for my car?'” He spat. “‘Someone stole my show material. I own the show so that means they stole my s–t. You think I stole my stuff?’
The “Coming to America” star revealed that she was “so angry” that her eyes were “stabbing.”
“I know Johnny [Carson] he was never accused of stealing Doc Severinsen’s equipment and being held on NBC’s premises … ” he writes.
Hall again asked the guard, “‘Did you ever search Ted Danson’s car when he left?’ Ted stars in the hit sitcom, Cheers, which airs on the Paramount lot. I love Ted. We are friendly. But Ted Danson, unlike me, is white.
J Dub got out of the car, went to the wooden gate and “bent back until it broke… I’m not proud that we broke the Paramount gate. I’m not proud of the anger that I feel all the time, that’s coiled inside me like a live electric wire. I’m fighting to control it.”
Hall, the first black host of the late-night talk show, writes that he constantly faced “the outpouring of hate—both overt and subtle racism,” including daily hate messages.
The show, which ran from 1989 to 1994, enjoyed great success for three years before ratings began to decline.
That’s when Hall heard from Paramount executives that focus groups had found the show too dark. He writes that he was told not to call visitors “brother” or wear ripped jeans.
Hall felt trapped, “black people say I’m too white, white people say I’m too black…”
He submitted a letter of resignation, which Paramount hid. Weeks later, they released a statement announcing that the program was ending in May 1994.
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