It was one of many wildest information tales of 2019: The assault of Empire star Jussie Smollett late one evening in Chicago, an assault he claimed was perpetrated by two white males, even after the Chicago police division accused him of hiring two Black males to faux the incident. In 2021, Smollett was discovered responsible of felony disorderly conduct, all whereas he proclaimed his innocence — in 2024, his conviction was overturned, however the harm to his profession and repute remained.
The brand new Netflix documentary The Fact About Jussie Smollett? features a query mark in its title as a result of in its interviews with key figures from the story, there are nonetheless two variations of what occurred, and nobody concerned will budge on their model of occasions. These interviewed embody Smollett, the Chicago cops who investigated the case, the 2 males accused of serving to Smollett faux the incident, and the 2 impartial witnesses whose model of occasions matches Smollett’s.
What stands out clearly is how not possible the social and political local weather at the moment made it for the precise details to emerge: As Smollett says within the documentary, as soon as the media frenzy round his assault started, “It was like taking part in whack-a-mole with rumors, with lies. You possibly can’t catch all of them.” Whereas goal reality could be not possible to seek out in instances like these, The Fact About Jussie Smollett? director Gagan Rehill does a transparent job of presenting either side of the incident and letting the viewers resolve for themselves.
Smollett Explains Why He Didn’t Wish to Give up His Telephone
The Fact About Jussie Smollett? (Netflix)
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The documentary begins by protecting the essential details of Smollett’s profession as much as that time and the preliminary response to his assault, adopted by the police investigation that rapidly turned towards Smollett. In discussing the request for him to show over his cellphone to the police, one thing he resisted, Smollett makes his point-of-view clear: “If everyone on this planet needed to open up their textual content messages, what would they discover? For me, I stay a full life and that i’ve made errors.”
The particular factor he didn’t wish to disclose to the world, he says, is that “I didn’t wish to get on the market was my drug use. I didn’t need that on the market.” Nonetheless, the incident and surrounding investigation meant that he needed to “needed to clarify each single eccentricity of mine” — akin to strolling round at evening at 2:00 a.m. “I at all times did that, like the opposite 4 individuals who have been on the Subway [that night].”
Smollett Has Explanations for His Communications with the Osundairo Brothers
The Fact About Jussie Smollett? (Netflix)
Smollett says that he was clear from the start that the 2 males who attacked him have been males sporting black masks, with sufficient pores and skin uncovered round their eyes to make it clear that they have been white. Nonetheless, the suspects that the cops first recognized have been Black.
In interviews with former chief of detectives Melissa Staples and former police superintendent Eddie Johnson, the documentary exhibits how the police used Uber data to establish Olabinjo Osundairo and his brother Abimbola (also referred to as Bola or Abel) — who each knew Smollett, as they’d labored as extras on Empire. Moreover, Abimbola was employed as Smollett’s coach, which is Smollett’s rationalization for why Abimbola had acquired a private examine from him for $3,500.
In response to Abimbola, that examine was fee for him and his brother to stage the assault on January twenty ninth. Smollett, in the meantime, says that “I wrote a examine to my coach for a 5 week interval — a enterprise examine, that was what it was for.”
Moreover, Smollett had despatched Abimbola a textual content saying “might have your assistance on the low” — which was taken as proof of Smollett enlisting him for the assault. Nonetheless, Smollett claims that he despatched the message to Abimbola as a result of he wished him to amass “an natural steriod that was unlawful right here within the US that could possibly be gotten in Nigeria.” The steroid, he provides, was to assist with the lack of stomach fats.
