{"id":68649,"date":"2025-08-14T09:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/68649\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T09:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:17:09","slug":"jussie-smollett-denies-alleged-2019-hate-crime-was-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/68649\/","title":{"rendered":"Jussie Smollett Denies Alleged 2019 Hate Crime Was Hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jussie Smollett Denies Alleged 2019 Hate Crime Was Hoax<\/p>\n

Back in 2019, Jussie Smollett<\/a> \u2014 who you probably know best from his performance on Empire \u2014 was indicted<\/a> on 16 felony counts by a Chicago grand jury for allegedly filing a false police report regarding a hate crime that he claimed to be the victim of.<\/p>\n

When filing the report, Jussie alleged that two men shouted racial and homophobic slurs at him while putting a noose over his neck and pouring bleach on him. In 2021, he was found guilty<\/a> of falsely reporting a hate crime, but in 2024 the conviction was overturned<\/a> by the Illinois Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with Variety<\/a> that was published ahead of the forthcoming Netflix documentary The Truth About Jussie Smollett?<\/a>, the actor maintained his innocence and claimed that he was a victim of the hate crime that he was eventually charged for allegedly making a false report of.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe villains are the two people who assaulted me, the Chicago Police Department and, if I may be so brave, the mayor,\u201d he said, referring to former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.<\/p>\n

Jussie also alleged that the 2014 murder of teenager Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer<\/a> Jason Van Dyke played a role in the scrutiny surrounding him. \u201cCould it be that they had just found out about the missing minutes and the missing tape from the murder of Laquan McDonald?” he said. “Could it be that the mayor helped hide that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\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,” he added.<\/p>\n

Jussie went on to address the pair of brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who eventually alleged to authorities that they’d planned the hate crime hoax along with the actor. \u201cAll I can say is, God bless you, and I hope it was worth it,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery single other person\u2019s story has changed multiple times. Mine has never. I have nothing to gain from this.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked why exonerating evidence supporting Jussie’s claims hasn’t yet emerged six years after the initial report, he replied, \u201cTo be honest with you, I don\u2019t really know. I\u2019m not an investigative reporter or a detective. I can\u2019t sit and tell you exactly, beat by beat, what happened.”<\/p>\n

“I can only tell you what did not 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

You can read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jussie Smollett Denies Alleged 2019 Hate Crime Was Hoax Back in 2019, Jussie Smollett \u2014 who you probably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2739,49,48,361,2740,75,8359,780],"class_list":{"0":"post-68649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-black-content","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-dib-celebs","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-lgbtq","15":"tag-timely"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}