Former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett suggested, but pointedly didn’t say outright, that the case against him for faking a hate crime in 2019 was manufactured by “haters” in an evasive new interview with People.
The haters in question “had a mission,” he told the outlet. “I felt very disconnected from that. I still to this day can’t entirely make sense of, ‘What the f–k was that?’ But obviously it was painful. I certainly am not going to sit here and try to act to the world as if I was fine.”
“People can say what they want about you, but they have no control,” Smollett added. “They can do whatever they want, they can even put you behind bars. They can control your physical, but they can’t control my mind. They can’t control my spirit. They can’t control my soul, and they can’t control the knowledge that I have of who I am.”
In January 2019 Smollett, bearing superficial injuries, reported to police in Chicago that two men wearing pro-Donald Trump merchandise yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him and left him with a noose around his neck.
The story was at first met with widespread outrage on Smollett’s behalf, but as more details, including security footage, became public, the story fell apart. The investigation eventually determined that Smollett staged the attack with Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, two brothers he’d met on the set of “Empire.”
In December 2021, Smollett was found guilty on 5 of 6 felony counts of disorderly conduct related to the hoax and was sentenced to 150 days in jail. He was released pending appeal after just 6 days. In December 2021, an appeals court upheld that conviction; Smollett’s latest appeal was argued before the Illinois Supreme Court on Sept. 17 of this year. If the conviction is upheld there, he’ll be required to serve the remainder of his sentence.
The actor also said the process of coming back from his conviction has been a challenge. “We’re still dealing with the repercussions from that narrative. We’re still dealing with that every day.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Smollett also said the day of his arrest – Feb. 19, 2019 — was his “darkest day.” He explained, “That was a pretty dark day because that’s when everything clicked to me of what was happening. A lot of things tested my strength, a lot of things tested my mental, but the one thing I never lost — I never started thinking that I am somebody that I’m not. That is the one thing that did not happen.”
“Keep in mind, I was deep in my thirties when this happened. This isn’t like I’m a 16-year-old or a 20-year-old, [where] this is impacting their very being of who they believe that they are. I never started thinking that I am somebody that I’m not,” he reiterated.
You can read the interview with Jussie Smollett at People.
