I’ll be totally candid: I had never heard of Jussie Smollett until the young man reported a few days ago that he had been the victim of a hate crime. I don’t watch “Empire,” so the actor slipped under my TV-watching radar.
It was in all the papers. Now I know far more about this guy than I care to know.
He has been accused of fabricating the incident and of paying two brothers to orchestrate a “crime” that the alleged “victim” made up.
I was struck by a couple of aspects of this morning’s announcement that Smollett had been arrested and taken into custody by the Chicago Police Department.
One was the absence of the word “allegedly” by the police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, who appeared to my eyes to be furious at what his detective division uncovered about Smollett’s supposedly phony involvement in this incident.
Smollett said someone attacked him and threw racial and homophobic slurs at him; Smollett, who is African-American, also is openly gay. The alleged attackers were supposedly wearing “MAGA” hats and passed themselves off as Donald Trump supporters.
The police superintendent also took pains today to say how much time, money, manpower and emotional energy was wasted by the phony accusation. Smollett had leveled a serious charge of a hate crime. The police took his complaint as seriously as it takes any such incident.
As I watched the press conference today, I was struck by the utter certainty in the voices of Johnson and the head of the CPD detective division. They believe they have solved this matter.
Jussie Smollett is presumed to be innocent. I get that. However, just as all the entertainment and media powerhouses who’ve been accused of sexual misbehavior also are presumed innocent, their careers are toast. I’m betting so is Smollett’s career.
To think that he supposedly set this “crime” up because he wanted more money for his acting gig on “Empire.” My strong hunch is that his entertainment income is about to dry up . . . rapidly!
And let us all hope that Smollett’s reported fakery will not hinder others from reporting actual hate crimes when they occur.
As for the brothers, it likely turns out they are the victims.
