Singer Fiona Apple addressed her recent drug arrest in a rambling speech during a show in Houston, Texas on Friday.

The Criminal hitmaker was arrested on Wednesday on a drug possession charge and was subsequently released on $10,000 US bail after spending the night in Hudspeth County Jail.

She postponed a gig on Thursday at the Moody Theater in Austin, but took to the stage on Friday at Houston's Bayou Music Center, where she stunned fans by taking time out from performing to blast several staff at the jail where she was incarcerated.

She told the audience, "There are four of you out there, and I want you to know that I heard everything you did, I wrote it all down with your names and everything you did and said, stupidly thinking that I couldn't hear or see you. I then ripped the paper up, but not before I encoded it."

Apple added she was sorry to "the guy who runs the jail," who she branded "a real decent guy," for "being attitude-y and saying that I didn't trust him. Because I didn't then but by the end of the day I did."