\n<\/p>\n
\n\tFor Jussie Smollett, there are clear-cut perpetrators in the story of the 2019 case that sent his once-ascendant career into a death spiral.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe villains are the two people who assaulted me, the Chicago Police Department and, if I may be so brave, the mayor,\u201d he says. He\u2019s referencing Rahm Emanuel, who held the city\u2019s top job from 2011 to 2019 and is the brother of Hollywood power broker Ari Emanuel.<\/p>\n
\n\tSmollett is making forays into rebooting his career as an actor, a director and a recording artist. But to do so, he needs to clear up this case, or at least attempt to: We\u2019re speaking just after news broke of a new documentary, \u201cThe Truth About Jussie Smollett?,\u201d which will stream on Netflix on Aug. 22 and features an interview with Smollett. The former \u201cEmpire\u201d star says that the Chicago establishment conspired to frame him: He claims he experienced a hate crime, one that the world came to believe he faked. Why would the Chicago P.D. and Emanuel do this? He answers the question with two questions.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cCould it be that they had just found out about the missing minutes and the missing tape from the murder of Laquan McDonald? Could it be that the mayor helped hide that?\u201d Smollett asks, referencing the case of a Chicago cop killing a Black teenager that prompted a federal judge to require the CPD to undertake dozens of reforms just two days after Smollett reported being attacked. \u201cWe\u2019re living in a world where the higher-ups, their main mission, in order to do all of the underhanded things that they\u2019re doing, is to distract us with the shiny object.\u201d (Rahm Emanuel declined comment.)<\/p>\n
\n\tSmollett\u2019s career came to a halt after two Nigerian American brothers began cooperating with authorities, claiming that they carried out the attack at Smollett\u2019s behest. Though the charges against him were initially dropped, they were refiled a year later, resulting in a conviction in 2021 on five counts of felony disorderly conduct. Three years later, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the decision on a technicality. But by then, Smollett\u2019s reputation was in tatters.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDan Doperalski for Variety<\/p>\n
\n\tNow, Smollett is getting worked up as he holds fast to his original story that two MAGA supporters wearing masks shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him before putting a noose around his neck and splashing him with bleach on a frigid night. He is speaking via Zoom from London; it\u2019s a follow-up to a lengthy sit-down in Los Angeles. My first meeting with Smollett had ended on a cliff-hanger, as he was working up to discuss his innocence. Now he\u2019s finally ready. He won\u2019t directly criticize the brothers, who wrote the book \u201cBigger Than Jussie: The Disturbing Need for a Modern-Day Lynching\u201d and have popped up on Fox News. But he also maintains that they weren\u2019t the attackers, as they testified under oath.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAll I can say is, God bless you, and I hope it was worth it,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery single other person\u2019s story has changed multiple times. Mine has never. I have nothing to gain from this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBack in July,\u00a0Smollett rises from a swivel chair in a windowless recording studio, lit only by peach-scented candles. Wearing a black baseball hat, a hoodie, sweatpants and Nikes, the 43-year-old actor-singer is putting the finishing touches on his second album, \u201cBreak Out,\u201d a throwback to the sweaty, sexy grooves of the early \u201990s made popular by the New Edition diaspora. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re a sober studio, so you want water or anything like that?\u201d asks Smollett as he pulls off his eyeglasses to wipe away the moisture. (The actor went to rehab in 2023.)<\/p>\n
\n\tTinkering away on a soundboard is music producer David Ott. \u201cWhat are we feeling?\u201d the producer asks as the lyrics float by: \u201cIf we do this right, we get to dance in the light. We get to live like we living it up, yeah. Seems like we getting it tonight.\u201d<\/em> The two men are longtime friends (Smollett is godfather to Ott\u2019s son) and collaborators, including on \u201cEmpire,\u201d on which Smollett\u2019s hip-hop scion Jamal Lyon sang, as well as Smollett\u2019s 2018 debut album, \u201cSum of My Music.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tDan Doperalski for Variety<\/p>\n \n\tAfter six years in exile, Smollett recently signed a deal with Rowdy Records. His lead single, also called \u201cBreak Out,\u201d dropped on Aug. 12, with the full album launching in late September. He\u2019s back in the fold at Fox \u2014 the very network that unceremoniously bounced him amid his legal troubles \u2014 as a cast member of the new season of reality endurance show \u201cSpecial Forces,\u201d which begins airing on Sept. 25. Eight days before this interview, the tearjerker family drama \u201cThe Lost Holliday,\u201d which he directed, co-wrote, produced and starred in, hit streaming platform Tubi and racked up 800,000 views in its first 72 hours, according to Smollett. (The film also stars \u201cEmpire\u201d alum Vivica A. Fox and Smollett\u2019s real-life fianc\u00e9, Jabari Redd.)<\/p>\n \n\tThese achievements might seem modest for the breakout of what was once the biggest show on TV, earning $100,000 per episode. As a star in rebuilding mode, he will soon have to subject himself to more interviews, with one topic inevitably coming up. The attack arrived just as Hollywood, in the midst of Donald Trump\u2019s first term, was poised for a racial reckoning. Those who disbelieve Smollett\u2019s story see him as having exploited a fraught political moment for his own gain. High-profile politicians who initially supported him began to distance themselves \u2014 like then-California Sen. Kamala Harris, who tweeted: \u201cI\u2019ve seen the reports about Jussie Smollett, and I\u2019m sad, frustrated, and disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe didn\u2019t return for the sixth and final season of \u201cEmpire,\u201d and his agents at UTA eventually dropped him.<\/p>\n \n\tToday, doing press is a process Smollett doesn\u2019t enjoy, even if the judge who oversaw his trial once excoriated him as someone who \u201ccraved the attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEvery time I have to go do something now, I tell myself, \u2018Time to be Whitney Houston,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like a role that you\u2019re playing when you go out there, where it\u2019s who you are, but\u00a0it\u2019s not really who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSo who really is Jussie Smollett? Even after spending time with him, it\u2019s hard to know. While the story of what happened in 2019 remains out of reach here in the recording studio, he\u2019s quick with a personal disclosure: He tells me all about his fianc\u00e9, Redd, whom he met in 2015. They\u2019re getting married next June; Smollett dreamed of having the ceremony at the von Trapp mansion in Salzburg, a nod to his favorite movie, \u201cThe Sound of Music,\u201d but \u201cwe\u2019re not Bezos.\u201d Next up, he wants \u201ca kid \u2014 or three.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe\u2019s upbeat and endlessly curious, zipping from a spiritual pilgrimage he recently made to Ghana to deep-cut film history. (\u201cBette Davis in \u2018Jezebel.\u2019 Legendary.\u201d) But he dances around the Chicago baggage on this night. The Netflix documentary, with its tease that Smollett might be innocent, also doesn\u2019t seem sure (thus the question mark in the title). Smollett participated in the 90-minute feature from the producers of \u201cThe Tinder Swindler\u201d more than a year ago, but he hasn\u2019t seen the finished product. Still, if exculpatory evidence exists, why didn\u2019t it emerge sooner?<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tSmollett, flanked by his mother, Janet, and his sister Jurnee, leaves the Chicago courthouse where he is on trial for disorderly conduct in 2021.<\/span> \n\t\u201cTo be honest with you, I don\u2019t really know,\u201d he says from London. \u201cI\u2019m not an investigative reporter or a detective. I can\u2019t sit and tell you exactly, beat by beat, what happened. I can only tell you what did not<\/em> happen. And what did not happen is the story that\u2019s been out there for almost seven years, that somehow I would have even a reason to do something as egregious as this.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s hard to get further clarity without being able to speak to others in his orbit. Smollett\u2019s family has never wavered in its loyalty to him: Smollett\u2019s sister Jurnee, star of the Apple TV+ series \u201cSmoke,\u201d initially expressed interest in being interviewed for this story, but that fell through after her publicist asked for potential conversation topics. (Naturally, the attack was one.) Jurnee is among the few people who understand Jussie\u2019s origin story. Born in the Bay Area to a Black mother and a Jewish father, Smollett and his five siblings were conditioned for the performing arts, just like the von Trapps. \u201cOur mom enjoyed pretending she was Fraulein Maria, marching through the streets, dancing and singing,\u201d he says. \u201cPsychotic.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJussie was the breakout of the family, and at age 8, he signed with agent Barbara Cameron \u2014 Kirk Cameron\u2019s mother \u2014 and landed a role in Disney\u2019s \u201cThe Mighty Ducks,\u201d hitting the ice alongside future \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek\u201d star Joshua Jackson. The Minneapolis set offered him a close-up vantage of other momagers. Suddenly, his situation wasn\u2019t so unique. \u201cThe mothers?<\/p>\n \n\tThey could easily write a movie about the behind the scenes that would make \u2018Best in Show\u2019 look like crap,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we had such an amazing time filming that.\u201d Then, the Smollett sextet made history at ABC with the series \u201cOn Our Own.\u201d \u201cTo this day, we are the only Black family that had all of the siblings in a scripted show. The Culkins cannot say that. The Phoenixes cannot say that. The Lawrences can<\/em> say that, but they ain\u2019t Black,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tSmollett (top right) with Ralph Louis Harris and Smollett\u2019s siblings Jake, Jurnee, Jazz, Jocqui and Jojo on the series \u201cOn Our Own\u201d<\/span> \n\tWhen asked about his father, Smollett becomes subdued. The patriarch died at the age of 58 of cancer in 2015 on the same day that \u201cEmpire\u201d first aired. Smollett was attending the premiere party when he sensed that his father\u2019s health had taken a turn and rushed to his bedside in Burbank. \u201cI\u2019m so glad that I saw him literally 40 minutes before he passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe series became an instant phenomenon, leaving Smollett to process the ultimate low and high simultaneously.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI still have the text message that Taraji [P. Henson] sent me: \u2018Baby, Terrence [Howard]\u2019s mom, my dad, and your dad are up there making things happen because we beat everybody.\u2019 That was the text. And I was just like, \u2018Who cares?\u2019 But I also did care,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first time I ever saw anybody say anything bad about me was three days later. I remember seeing a comment that said, \u2018He\u2019s in the illuminati. He traded his father\u2019s life for success.\u2019\u201d Smollett was shocked, and resentful; his attitude toward his career shifted. \u201cI was disconnected from the fame part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFour years after the illuminati comment, Smollett was once again under scrutiny, but far more magnified, as Chicago police pivoted from investigating a hate crime against Smollett to arresting the actor himself.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI saw firsthand how narratives are built. I saw firsthand the way that someone can take the exact opposite of who you are and literally sell it,\u201d he says of his vilification. \u201cAnd people will be like, \u2018I believe it!\u2019 God rest his soul, but homeboy Michael Jackson tried to warn us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t(Jackson faced multiple sexual abuse accusations and police investigations in his lifetime and even after his death in the documentary \u201cLeaving Neverland.\u201d Smollett seems to suggest this was also a conspiracy.)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tJussie Smollett (right) and Bryshere Gray on \u201cEmpire\u201d<\/span> \n\tAt the end of our first meeting, we settle on Aug. 4 for our follow-up. (\u201cObama\u2019s birthday!\u201d Smollett notes excitedly.) It\u2019s then that we\u2019ll delve into what really happened in 2019. He admits, as we part ways, that he cares about how he\u2019s perceived: \u201cI\u2019m still insecure when I meet people for the first time. I don\u2019t know if they are coming into the room thinking that I\u2019m this trash person who did something that I didn\u2019t do, or if they are thinking that I am this good person who got a raw deal. Or if they\u2019re not thinking anything and they\u2019re just coming in,\u201d he says as he pauses on those options, \u201cI would rather the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSome of his \u201cEmpire\u201d colleagues remained supportive, namely Henson, who even invested in Smollett\u2019s feature directorial debut, the \u201990s-set drama \u201cB-Boy Blues,\u201d based on a novel by James Earl Hardy. He also remains in touch with Howard. Perhaps that\u2019s why Smollett is loath to throw shade at his one-time co-star, who recently raised eyebrows when he told Bill Maher that he turned down a Marvin Gaye biopic because he didn\u2019t want to kiss another man.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe all have those family members who say things where you\u2019re just like, \u2018Just shut up,\u2019\u201d Smollett says. \u201cI don\u2019t like the way that he said it, but I understand what he was saying. There are roles that I could not commit to. And if he does believe that? Then I respect the man for being honest.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAccepting life\u2019s complications is a challenge; Smollett knows that as well as anyone. He tells me a story: \u201cMy paternal grandfather worked as an animator for Disney. This is the story we\u2019ve been told. I don\u2019t know how true it is. He quit during \u2018Dumbo\u2019 because he didn\u2019t like how the birds were portrayed as Black people,\u201d he says. (The crows who encour- age Dumbo to fly \u2014 one of them named Jim Crow \u2014 have been criticized as racist stereotypes.) \u201cI grew up watching \u2018Dumbo.\u2019 I didn\u2019t grow up thinking of them as Black. I grew up thinking of them as like bebop, like jazz. Looking back, I\u2019m like, \u2018Damn, that was fucked up.\u2019 But it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Jussie Smollett, there are clear-cut perpetrators in the story of the 2019 case that sent his once-ascendant career into a death spiral. \u201cThe villains are the two people who assaulted me, the Chicago Police Department and, if I may be so brave, the mayor,\u201d he says. He\u2019s referencing Rahm Emanuel, who held the city\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[3706,2173,1929,1738,830,9103,274,9104],"class_list":{"0":"post-15552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-comeback","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-documentary","11":"tag-hate","12":"tag-hollywood","13":"tag-jussie","14":"tag-netflix","15":"tag-smollett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney General Entertainment Con<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFOX Image Collection via Getty I<\/p>\n