An artist who flew to New York to promote a book about his time as a drug addict and his insatiable love of prostitutes was turned back at the airport on the ground of “moral turpitude”.

Sebastian Horsley, 45, had arrived, dressed in his “dandy uniform” that includes a velvet scarf and a stovepipe hat, for the US launch of his memoir Dandy in the Underworld. Instead he was interrogated for eight hours at Newark Airport about past drug taking, his links to Kate Moss and the contents of his hat.

It was his seventh trip to America but, since his last visit, new security measures, including fingerprint scans, have been introduced. “As soon as I put my finger on the machine they said, ‘We are taking you aside’,” he said. An immigration officer asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell them about previous convictions. He said: “I racked my brain. I said 25 years ago I was given a conditional discharge for possession of amphetamine sulphate. I was assured at the time that so long as you remained out of trouble there would be no record of it. I have remained trouble-free. Despite the fact that I have been involved in drugs, I have no criminal convictions.”

A Home Office spokesman said that the British Border and Immigration Agency did not share details of past convictions of British citizens with the US. “We only do that where there is an outstanding warrant,” he said. “I would suspect that this guy volunteered the information himself.”

The immigration officer told Horsley that Newark’s immigration officials knew all about him, his drug taking and his life as a male escort. “I suspect she just Googled me,” he said.

He was told he had “been determined to be inadmissible under Section 212(A)(2)(I)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act as amended” and that he was an alien who had been convicted or who admitted having committed or who admitted committing acts which constituted the essential elements of a crime involving moral turpitude.”

Further questions followed. They wanted to know about his relationship with Kate Moss. “I don’t have one,” he said. “She wanted to be photographed in my studio and I said no. They said did you do drugs with Kate Moss. I said no.”

They also asked him what he was keeping in his hat, to which he replied: “My head.”

His girlfriend was asked if she realised who she was travelling with. “She said, ‘My boyfriend’. They said, ‘You don’t know him at all. He has a string of convictions for drugs and prostitution’.”

She was also asked about the hat. “She said it didn’t fit in the suitcase.” He asked to speak to a superior officer and told him: “I’m an artist. I live my life like an open book — you reveal who you are to be accepted or rejected.” The superior officer settled on the latter option.

Mr Horsley had arrived in America at 1.30pm. After eight hours of interrogation, he was booked on a 10.30pm flight back to London.

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