Jussie Smollett Indicted on Felony Charges, and It Could Get Worse For Him

Jussie Smollett has had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, and it just. Keeps. Getting. Worse. Seriously, I did not set out to write about this story every day this week, but it’s Margot-Kidder-in-the-bushes levels of insane. Quick recap is Jussie Smollett allegedly sent himself a threatening letter with white powder in it to the set of Empire (with a return address of “MAGA”) and no one really gave a s**t so he allegedly hired some extras from Empire to pretend to beat him up and say “This is MAGA country” to get the attention he wanted.

I feel like the next thing that’s going to come out is that newspaper publisher who wrote the editorial about how he wants the KKK to go kill Democrats is going to say Jussie Smollett paid him to do it. But I really hope that doesn’t happen because I don’t want to have to write about this dude again.

Smollett was indicted by a grand jury for filing a false police report. Via CNN:

Anthony Guglielmi said charges were approved by the Cook County State’s Attorney Office and “Detectives will make contact with his legal team to negotiate a reasonable surrender for his arrest.”

Filing a false police report is disorderly conduct, according to Illinois code. A class 4 felony is punishable by one to three years, the code says.

One to three years in prison means Jussie could still be in prison when Bill Cosby gets out. Which is kind of fucked up if you think about it for more than two seconds.

Ken White, the internet’s favorite lawyer, tweeted that if Smollett faked the original letter he could be in some serious trouble.

And as the cherry on this sit meringue pie is that Variety is reporting Jussie could lose his job on Empire over this scheme, which was presumably meant to keep him from getting written off of Empire.

Fox is considering removing Jussie Smollett from production on “Empire.” Sources close to the production told Variety that producers are weighing whether to suspend the actor after he was charged Wednesday in Chicago with filing a false police report.

A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox Television, which produces the series, declined to comment. Smollett’s status on the show may change amid a fluid legal situation.

I feel like the only thing Smollett can do to redeem himself here is go back in time and stop Hitler. But with his luck he’d do it and some time traveler would be like “Dude, do you even know what happened before we put that painter in charge? Seriously, you really fucked things up here, man.”