Lee Daniels Would Cast Jussie Smollett In A Future Project Despite Hate Crime Scandal
Lee Daniels is open to working with Jussie Smollett again, despite the actor’s false hate crime scandal and subsequent conviction.
In a recent The Breakfast Club interview, Daniels revealed for the first time that he’d be willing to hire Smollett since writing him off of Empire back in 2019.
“I’d work with him again,” said the 64-year-old. “I’d cast him in something. He was a son to me. And he also represented me. And he also represented the movement that I tried to start, which I didn’t know I was starting. I was so busy, worried about Cookie’s hat and the music that we were playing [on Empire], this was before Insecure, this was before Black Panther. We started it.”
Daniels added, “I was so worried about getting everything right that I didn’t know what was happening in the zeitgeist.”
The director-producer described Smollett’s scandal as “complicated,” and admitted to never gaining full clarity regarding the alleged incident.
“I still don’t know what to believe,” he confessed. “Honestly, I don’t know what to believe. People say he didn’t do it, he did do it. God bless him on his journey.”
Daniels once said he was “beyond embarrassed” for rushing to defend Smollett. He told Vulture, “I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies. I had a flash of my whole life, of my childhood, my youth, getting beaten […] Of course, there’s some doubt. I’m telling you that because I love him so much. That’s the torture that I’m in right now, because it’s literally if it were to happen to your son and your child, how would you feel? […] That’s why it’s been so painful. It was a flood of pain.”
In January 2019, Smollett reported that two men attacked him in Chicago while he was headed home following a late-night stop to grab some food. He claimed the men spewed racist and homophobic slurs, wrapped a rope around his neck, and poured bleach on him.
Authorities later accused the On Our Own star of paying brothers Abimbola “Bola” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo $3,500 to stage a faux hate crime attack. They claimed it was in response to Smollett being unhappy with his Empire salary after the five-year stint.
In March 2022, Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of felony probation, was ordered to pay $120,106 in restitution and a $25,000 fine for the hoax and for filing a false police report in connection to the incident.
Smollett has maintained his innocence by filing an appeal, but the conviction was upheld as of Dec. 2023. He didn’t appear in Empire‘s sixth and final season.
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