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Arsenio Hall found it hard to hold back his emotions during a recent interview with Tika Sumpter. The actress, who visited his self-titled talk to promote her new film Ride Along, moved the host to tears after sharing her memories of the late Whitney Houston.

“Whitney was everything,” said Sumpter, who played the R&B diva’s daughter in her last film Sparkle. “You’d be sitting in a corner, and I’d be just kind of quiet, they’d be changing for the set-up and she’s like, ‘You okay, baby? Who do I need to talk to to make sure you’re all right?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m good’ and she’s like, ‘All right, I got you.’ She was just like a mother.”

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“Now I’m really missing Whitney,” Arsenio chimed in. “You hit it. You hit those beats so perfectly. She sticks with you, huh?”

Hall, a longtime friend of Houston, said she would have loved to see his revived talk show. “She was a great girl … and she would love that I’m doing this again,” he said, fighting back tears. “She was always a big supporter, good friend.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you cry,” said Sumpter.

“It’s this good thing,” Hall replied. “It’s this deep love for her.”

In related Whitney news, the seven-time Grammy Award winner and her cousin, singer Dionne Warwick, joined New Jersey’s Hall of Fame this week. Houston’s mom Cissy accepted the honor on behalf of her daughter, who died of an accidental drowning in 2012.

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