Empire Creator Lee Daniels Would Work Again With Smollett After Hoax

Empire creator Lee Daniels, 64, shared his thoughts in an interview on iHeart Radio’s The Breakfast Club after Jussie Smollett, 42, was convicted of making false accusations about a racist attack, speaking for the first time since writing Smollett off the show. Moreover, Daniels revealed that he is open to collaborating with him on a future project.

“I’d Work With Him Again”

Daniels says Smollett is like a son to him and he is ready to cast him 

“I’d work with him again. 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.”

 “I was so worried about getting everything right that I didn’t know what was happening in the zeitgeist,” Daniels stated 

False Accusations 

Jussie Smollett, a gay Black man in January 2019, reported that he was attacked by two men who hurled racist and homophobic slurs, wrapped a rope around his neck, and poured bleach on him as he walked home from a late-night stop at a sandwich shop.

Later after an investigation, it was found that Smollett himself paid brothers Abimbola “Bola” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo $3,500 to stage the crime against him as he was dissatisfied with the Empire’s salary after appearing for five seasons 

Daniels said about the situation  “the whole situation was complicated. I still don’t know what to believe. 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.” 

“We Are Gratified That Jussie Will Be Back”

After the false accusations in March 2022, Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of felony probation, $120,106 in restitution, and a $25,000 fine for the hate crime hoax and filing a false police report. Moreover, he was also released from Empire before its sixth and final season.

In a report of People, Tina Glandian of Geragos & Geragos, one of Smollett’s attorneys said “We are gratified that Jussie will be back with his family and loved ones and look forward to a dispassionate review and reversal of the serial injustices visited upon him.”

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