Jussie Smollett #
Introduction #
Jussie Smollett, the actor who starred in the Fox drama “Empire,” was convicted in December 2021 of five counts of felony disorderly conduct for staging a fake hate crime against himself in January 2019 — an episode that made him a national cautionary tale about false victimhood claims. In November 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the conviction on procedural grounds, ruling that Smollett should not have been prosecuted again after an earlier deal with prosecutors, even as the underlying dispute over what happened that night continued to be bitterly contested.
Background Information #
Born June 21, 1982, in Santa Rosa, California, Smollett began acting as a child and rose to prominence playing musician Jamal Lyon on “Empire” from 2015 to 2019. He is the brother of actress Jurnee Smollett. In the early hours of January 29, 2019, in downtown Chicago, Smollett told police that two men had attacked him, yelled racial and homophobic slurs, poured bleach on him, and put a noose around his neck — a report that drew national outrage and support.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #
Chicago police soon concluded the attack had been staged. Prosecutors said Smollett arranged for two brothers — Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, bodybuilders he knew — to carry out the attack, paying them $3,500 plus $100 for expenses, and that he lied to police repeatedly about the incident, allegedly to gain publicity after being unhappy with a studio’s response to hate mail he had received.
The case took a convoluted legal path: Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx recused herself in 2019 after speaking with one of Smollett’s relatives, and the charges were initially dropped in exchange for community service and forfeiture of his $10,000 bond. After public outrage — then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Smollett had been “let off scot-free” — a special prosecutor was appointed, a grand jury re-indicted Smollett, and the case went to trial in late 2021.
Public Reaction and Consequences #
On December 9, 2021, after deliberating more than nine hours over two days, a Cook County jury found Smollett guilty on five of six counts of disorderly conduct related to a false report — acquitting him on one count of making a false report at a later date. Smollett had testified days earlier that “there was no hoax.” Special prosecutor Dan Webb called the verdict “a resounding message by the jury that, in fact, Mr. Smollett did exactly what we said he did.” Smollett’s attorney, Nenye Uche, said the jury’s decision was “inconsistent” and that he was “100% confident that this case will be won on appeal.” In March 2022, Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail; he served six days before being freed pending appeal.
Current Status #
On November 21, 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned Smollett’s conviction, ruling that his rights were violated when he was prosecuted by a special prosecutor after the State’s Attorney’s Office had dropped the charges in exchange for community service. The court wrote: “We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust. Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.” Smollett has continued to maintain that the attack was real and that he was its victim.
Impact on Their Career/Life #
Smollett’s conviction — and the years of litigation that preceded and followed it — effectively ended his run on “Empire” and derailed his career as an actor and singer. Even after the conviction was overturned, the case left a permanent mark on his public image: while he was legally cleared on procedural grounds, the state supreme court’s decision did not adjudicate whether the attack was staged, and the two brothers who said he hired them had testified to that effect at trial.