On the eve of a comeback to TV, actor Jussie Smollett is again claiming he did not hoax a supposed hate crime perpetrated against him in 2019 and is renewing his attack on Chicago and its police department.
Six years after his career fell came to a halt, Smollett is set for a TV comeback in a new competition series this fall entitled, Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.
But ahead of the debut of the new series, Smollett is unsurprisingly facing questions over his hoax hate crime all over again. And he is still denying that he engaged in a hoax back in 2019 despite the evidence.
“The villains are the two people who assaulted me, the Chicago Police Department and, if I may be so brave, the mayor [then Rahm Emanuel,” Smollett said according to Variety.
Trying to obscure his own culpability, Smollett accused former Mayor Emanuel of trying to hide the video of the police involved shooting of teen Laquan McDonald. “We’re living in a world where the higher-ups, their main mission, in order to do all of the underhanded things that they’re doing, is to distract us with the shiny object,” he exclaimed.
Further, he claimed that he has always stood by the same story on what happened on the cold Chicago night. “Every single other person’s story has changed multiple times. Mine has never. I have nothing to gain from this,” he exclaimed.
“To be honest with you, I don’t really know,” he said of why exculpatory evidence has never emerged. “I’m not an investigative reporter or a detective. I can’t sit and tell you exactly, beat by beat, what happened. I can only tell you what did not happen. And what did not happen is the story that’s been out there for almost seven years, that somehow I would have even a reason to do something as egregious as this.”
In early 2019, the Empire actor reported to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in downtown Chicago at the hands of two men who derided him with homophobic slurs while yelling “this is MAGA country” as they tied a noose around his neck. The media initially accepted the actor’s claims as fast fact, but soon enough cracks started to appear in his story.
Smollett later turned himself in and police charged him with felony filing a false police report. Still, Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx dropped the charges, prompting outrage from both the Chicago Police Department and Mayor Emanuel. A Chicago judge later appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the way Smollett’s case was handled.
In 2022, Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail after being tried and convicted for five counts of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. He was later sued by the city for $130,000 to cover the cost of his hoax investigation. Smollett settled the suit by agreeing to donate $60,000 to two Chicago-based charities. That was followed by the Illinois Supreme Court overturning his five felony charges, which Smollett says proves his innocence.
“However, despite arduous and expensive attempts to punish me, I am innocent in the eyes of God and our criminal justice system,” Smollett claimed. “I will continue creating my art, fighting passionately for causes I hold dear and defending my integrity and family name with the truth.”
However, the state Supreme Court pointed out that it did not declare Smollett innocent. They only vacated the guilty verdict based on fifth amendment grounds because Kim Foxx had earlier dropped the charges.
Special prosecutor Dan Webb said the ruling had “nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence.: He added, “The Illinois Supreme Court did not find any error with the overwhelming evidence presented at trial… or the jury’s unanimous verdict that Mr. Smollett was guilty of five counts of felony disorderly conduct.”
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