Jussie Smollett Got Kicked Off of ‘Empire’ Because Everyone Hates Him Now
This Jussie Smollett story just keeps getting more and more fascinating to me; there’s an assumption that it’s getting so much coverage because of race relations and people want an excuse to dismiss real hate incidents which have been on the rise for the past three years for some reason. That’s not the reason I’ve been covering it so much, though. I’ve been so interested in it because a guy whose career was going relatively well tried to raise his cachet in the dumbest way possible and it exploded in his face and basically ended his career.
If you haven’t been following, Smollett faked two hate crimes against himself; after sending himself a threatening letter calling himself a “black f*g” he hired an extra from Empire and a friend to pretend to be Trump supporters and pretend to beat him up and put a noose around his neck. And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling police. The reason police went so hard on him once it became clear he had faked it was that the Chicago PD is strained for resources and was forced to assign 24 detectives to investigate this case because of the high profile. Jussie is not exactly the kind of criminal mastermind who can fool two dozen officers. He paid his fake attackers, one of whom worked on his prime-time network TV show, with a check.
According to TMZ, the entire cast of Empire hates him now, and he’s all but fired, having been written off the show for at least the rest of the season.
A source close to Terrence [Howard] tell us … the actor didn’t believe Jussie’s account from the get-go, he felt the story never added up. We’re told Terrence grilled Jussie periodically as holes began to emerge.
Tensions between Terrence and Jussie boiled over after the 2 Nigerian-American brothers who allegedly helped Jussie stage the attack, Abel and Ola Osundario, were detained by police … we’re told Terrence confronted Jussie once again, screaming at him to come clean.
The rest of the cast feels much the same. Basically, everyone stuck their neck out and supported him and he made them look like idiots.
The feelings of animosity stem from the fact everyone on set had Jussie’s back after the “attack,” but in light of the new evidence police have laid out … many of them feel hurt and embarrassed.
We’re told almost everyone on set is worried about how Smollett’s damaged the show’s reputation … and could continue to do so if he remains part of the cast.
Well, Fox listened, and Jussie was kicked off the last two episodes of the season because his mere presence on set was disruptive.
7:25 AM PT— Fox just announced it’s scratching Smollett from the end of the current season. The statement says, “The events of the past few weeks have been incredibly emotional for all of us. Jussie has been an important member of our EMPIRE family for the past five years and we care about him deeply. While these allegations are very disturbing, we are placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays out.”
The statement continues, “We are also aware of the effects of this process on the cast and crew members who work on our show and to avoid further disruption on set, we have decided to remove the role of ‘Jamal’ from the final two episodes of the season.”
If you’re a betting person, whatever the odds are that Jussie never sets foot on the set of Empire again, take them. It’s sad really; all Jussie had to do to was nothing and he’d have been a successful actor on a hit TV show for years, and he could have gone on to a bright future and a big career. Instead, he did this, and now he could end up in prison longer than Bill Cosby and the only acting role in his future is in a “don’t do fake hate crimes” PSA.
