It was the perfect politically motivated crime, until the Chicago Police Department said it was not. Jussie Smollett, the openly gay star of the television show “Empire,” told Chicago police that two men assaulted him outside his apartment last month. The 36-year-old actor claimed the men beat him, poured a chemical on him, and wrapped a noose around his neck. The attackers, Smollett would later say, were screaming, “This is MAGA country!”
Why did he think he was targeted? Racist homophobia whipped up by President Trump.
The left largely agreed, and Smollett was made an overnight martyr by celebrities, many in the media, and politicians who held up his attack as a microcosm of everything wrong with Trump’s America. Then the story unraveled, according to police.
The two men were not conservative goons. They were actors who admitted Smollett paid them to stage the attack. The bruises and scratches were not real injuries. They look to police to be self-inflicted. The attack was not a hate crime. The incident appears to be an attempt to bolster his career and, possibly, boost his salary.
“This publicity stunt was a scar that Chicago didn’t earn and certainly didn’t deserve,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Thursday after Smollett was charged with a felony for falsifying a police report. “To make things worse, the accusations within this phony attack received national attention for weeks. Celebrities, news commentators and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor.”
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05.05.2025