Jussie Smollett Breaks Silence About Felony Charges Against Him: ‘There Is An Example Being Made’
Jussie Smollett has been radio silent ever since he was hit with felony charges alleging that he staged his own hate crime.
The actor participated in an Instagram live interview with BET News host and former CNN commentator, Marc Lamont Hil, to talk about the charges he’s facing and the criminal justice system that has a healthy obsession with him.
“There is an example being made,” Smollett told Hill, according to Fox. “And the sad part is that there is an example being made of someone that did not do what they’re being accused of.”
The Empire star reiterated that there are witnesses to corroborate his story that two white men shouted racial, homophobic slurs at him before attacking him with bleach and a noose in Chicago.
Smollett suggests another narrative was “intentionally created” to make it seem like he’s lying. “These are the things that people don’t necessarily know because the lies and the things that were not true were yelled from the rooftop,” Smollett said. “There is a tape … there is something, but of course, it cuts off right before it happens.”
According to police records, authorities only spoke to one witness that did say one of the attackers was white and there’s no record of a video. But the Chicago Police Department used the city’s surveillance camera system plus taxi cameras and ride-sharing records, the only two people in the vicinity at the time of the attack were Ola and Abel Osundairo.
The two brothers met Jussie on a set of Empire and occasionally bought drugs for him and trained him. They were arrested and after 48 hours in custody, they claimed that Smollett paid them to attack him so that he can get a rise on the hit show.
Police previously said the Osundairos remained uncooperative until saying that story. Smollett insisted that “there would be no reason for me to do something foolish.”
“I do think that if you look at all of the things that were happening for me, and then for all of the opportunities and all of the money … whatever, that I have lost at this point, if in fact what they said was true, the smart thing to do would be to admit that. At least there would be a place to work back from. This is bulls—t. It’s bulls—t,” the actor said.
Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office suddenly dropped the charges against the actor last March, only to charge him in February with six felony counts for filing a false police report. There were findings that Kim Foxx allegedly mishandled the case.
Throughout all of this, Jussie Smollett had to remain tight-lipped and expressed that he’s unsure about how that served him.
“It’s been frustrating, to say the least. It’s been frustrating. It’s been beyond frustrating because to be somebody that’s so outspoken, to be somebody that speaks up for so much and speaks up about so many things, it’s been difficult to kinda be, you know, quiet,” Smollett said.
“To not be able to say all of the things that you want to say, to not be able to yell from the rooftop because I don’t think that people realize I’ve just been wrapped up in some form of a case for the last … approaching, in just a couple months, two years,” Smollett went on.
“So it’s been beyond frustrating, and I think that I’m certainly not going rogue, and I’m still taking the advice of my attorneys and everything like that. I just don’t see, honestly, what staying quiet has done, where it’s gotten me,” he said. “Then there’s the bigger picture that it’s so much bigger than me.”
Jussie Smollett insisted that there’s a financial motivation to win this case at all costs, and the public should take a closer look at the police and prosecutors involved. “You’re willing to throw people under the bus that don’t deserve to be. You’re willing to coax people into lying about saying things happened that did not happen, you’re able to switch a narrative and sell a narrative based on the agenda that you’re trying to sell,” Smollett railed. “That is what’s been happening.”