Jussie Smollett Spins Elaborate Alternative Explanation for Late-Night Attack: ‘There Was No Hoax’

Chicago, Ill. — Testifying in his own defense Monday, former Empire star Jussie Smollett forcefully denied that he had anything to do with staging a hoax hate crime against himself in January 2019, and instead laid out an alternate explanation for the events leading up to the alleged racist and homophobic attack that garnered national attention.

Smollett, 39, came across as composed, polite, and confident in laying out his version of events leading up to him being attacked outside his downtown Chicago apartment just after 2 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2019. His alleged attackers called Smollett racist and anti-gay slurs, fought with him, poured bleach on him, hung a noose around his neck, and yelled out “this is MAGA country,” to make it appear as if the attack was carried out by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Police investigated the attack as a potential hate crime. However, they soon came to believe it wasn’t a hate crime at all, but instead a hoax perpetrated by Smollett, with the assistance of two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, both of whom worked as extras on Empire. Smollett is facing six counts of felony disorderly conduct and could serve as many as three years in prison if found guilty.

Prosecutors pointed to a text message Smollett sent to Abimbola Osundairo on January 25, asking to meet with him privately, or “on the low.” Abimbola Osundairo testified last week that during that meeting, which took place while they were driving and smoking marijuana in Smollett’s Mercedes, Smollett laid out his plan for the staged attack, and asked Osundairo if he would help.

Investigators have pointed to surveillance footage from January 27, 2019, during which Smollett drove with the Osundairo brothers around his neighborhood, including several times past the staircase that would eventually become the scene of the alleged attack. Both Osundairo brothers testified that was a dry-run for the staged attack.

Prosecutors also allege that Smollett paid the brothers $3,500 to stage the attack, noting that he gave Abimbola Osundairo a check for $3,500 after the dry run on the 27^th.

Smollett acknowledged he was driving with Osundairo brothers on both January 25 and 27, but he denied he was conspiring with them to stage an attack. “There was no hoax,” Smollett said.

Smollett told the jury that his correspondence with Abimbola Osundairo in late January 2019 centered around hiring the 28-year-old to help him develop a nutrition plan and exercise routine ahead of an important upcoming music video. He said that when he texted Abimbola Osundairo on Jan. 25 about meeting “on the low,” that was code that he wanted to talk with Osundairo about obtaining an herbal steroid during the brothers’ upcoming trip to Nigeria. The herbal steroid, he said, is banned in the U.S. but legal in Nigeria. However, on cross-examination Smollett told special prosecutor Dan Webb that he didn’t know the name of the herbal steroid.

Regarding driving around his neighborhood with the Osundairos on January 27, Smollett acknowledged it occurred – there’s surveillance footage of it – but he denied it was a dry run for a staged attack. He and Abimbola Osundairo were just driving around smoking weed, something Smollett said he does often, both by himself and with others. When asked how many times he’d driven around with Abimbola Osundairo smoking weed, he said, “too many to count.”

“I always have weed on me,” Smollett said at one point, but because he was in court, “not now.”

Smollett denied that he paid the Osundairo brothers $3,500 to stage the attack. The memo section of the check he gave to Abimbola Osundairo on the 27th said it was for a five-week “nutrition/workout program.” Smollett said that’s exactly what it was for and said he’s paid previous trainers $5,000 for similar services.

The Osundairos testified last week that they were providing the nutrition and exercise plans for free, but they assumed the $3,500 check was payment for the plans and for the staged attack.

Smollett testified that he was supposed to do a workout with Abimbola Osundairo before the brothers left for Nigeria the evening of January 29, so Osundairo could walk Smollett through some of the planned exercises. That workout, Smollett said, was supposed to take place on the evening of January 28, after Smollett returned to Chicago from a quick jaunt to New York. But his plane was delayed several hours. He kept in communication with Abimbola Osundairo through phone calls and via Instagram.

He said Osundairo called him about 12:45 a.m. to reschedule their workout for 9 a.m. the next morning, and that Osundairo directed him to go to a nearby Walgreens to get four eggs to have for breakfast in the morning before they exercised. In Smollett’s telling, that is how the Osundairo brothers could have reasonably expected he’d be out walking around in subzero temperatures early that morning.

“I took a walk to Walgreens,” Smollett said. “When I was approaching, I saw they were closed. I decided to just run to Subway.”

After picking up Subway sandwiches, Smollett was walking home when he heard someone call out “Empire,” followed by racial and anti-gay slurs. When he turned around, he said, one of the assailants was ten to 12 feet away and closing in fast. The alleged attacker punched him, and they fell to the ground fighting. He said the alleged attacker was wearing a ski mask, but he could see skin under the mask that appeared to be white or pale.

He said the alleged attack took no longer than 30 seconds. “This happened fast,” Smollett said.

Smollett called the alleged attack “embarrassing,” and said he never wanted to report it to police, in part because it could hurt his career, but also because of his lack of faith in the police.

“I am a black man in America. I do not trust police. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth,” he said.

He said he had dreams of getting acting jobs playing athletes and superheroes, and it wouldn’t help him to be known in Hollywood as the “(f-word) who got his ass kicked.”

Smollett said it was a colleague who was at his apartment with him that night who ultimately called police. He said the story he told police from the beginning has not changed. “What happened to me happened, so there was nothing to hide,” Smollett said.

During the beginning of his cross-examination, which is expected to continue Tuesday, Webb homed in on Smollett not fully cooperating with investigators – Smollett declined to turn over his phone to police, and he refused to provide his medical records or a DNA cheek swab. Smollett said he wanted to help police, but “I cared more about my privacy.”

Smollett also answered questions about why he appeared to have kept the noose on for more than a half hour before police arrived. He said he didn’t. He took it off when he got home, but put it back on at the suggestion of his colleague. Otherwise, police might think “I was messing with evidence,” Smollett said.

Questioned by his lead defense lawyer Nenye Uche, Smollett started his testimony talking about growing up as a working child actor in a middle-class family. He said he drifted away from acting for a while, taking work in restaurants and at retail stores, before rededicating himself to the acting craft as a young man.

It was in 2014, he said, that he landed a starring role on Empire, playing the role of Jamal Lyon, a gay, black singer — a role that mirrored his own life in several ways.

Smollett said he earned about $28,000 per episode for the first 10-episode season, but by season five – his last season on the hit show – he was making $100,000 per episode, and doing some directing. “I was happy with my entire contract,” said Smollett, who was soft-spoken on the stand.  He called the show a “juggernaut of success,” and “the biggest show on television.”

But Smollett said he felt intense pressure because of his historic role as an openly gay black man. That was one reason, he said, why he started doing a lot of recreational drugs, including cocaine. “It got me away from everything else, so to speak,” he said.

Smollett testified that he first met Abimbola Osundairo at a Chicago nightclub in 2017, through a mutual friend. That first night, he said, he and Osundairo did drugs together at a nightclub, and then went to a gay bath house and made out. During his testimony last week, Osundairo denied that he was involved in any sort of sexual relationship with Smollett. Smollett said Osundairo often helped him to obtain drugs, and that he paid Osundairo for the drugs.

Smollett said he regretted his drug use. “I’m sitting here in front of a jury, in front of my mom having to explain it. Absolutely,” he told Uche.

Smollett said he barely knew Olabinjo Osundairo, whom the defense is attempting to paint as homophobic. “He kind of creeped me out,” Smollett said. He said that when he was out one night with the Osundairo brothers at a female strip club, he and Abimbola Osundairo snuck away to the gay bath house.

Smollett also answered questions about a racist and hateful letter he received in the mail at the Empire studio on Jan. 22, 2019. Prosecutors allege that Smollett didn’t think the studio leaders were taking the letter seriously enough, and that was the motive to stage the attack.

But Smollett testified that the studio leaders didn’t just offer him security, “they got me security.” His concerns, he said, weren’t that they’d done too little, but that the security he got from the studio was too intrusive. The security company expected to drive him to and from work, preventing Smollett from driving around while on break and smoking pot.

“I’m a grown man. I don’t need to be driven around like I’m Miss Daisy,” Smollett said. “They were just doing too much.”

Smollett said that after he received the racist hate mail, Abimbola Osundairo suggested he should be Smollett’s security guard. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that, Smollett said, calling the idea that Osundairo would be his a security guard “just a running joke.” His defense has suggested that the Osundairo brothers jumped Smollett to scare him, so he would hire Abimbola Osundairo for a $5,000-weekly security job.

In addition to shooting a big music video just weeks after the alleged attack, he also was scheduled to shoot a historic gay black wedding scene on Empire. Having a scarred and bruised face would not be helpful in either case, he testified.

“My character was a superstar, a popstar, a beloved GQ whatever,” Smollett said. “It was very important that I looked like a black Cary Grant.”

Smollett said that since the attack, he has not been able to get additional acting work. “I’ve lost my livelihood,” he said.

Smollett was the third defense witness of the day. The first, a security guard who was working at a nearby hotel at the time of the alleged attack, testified that he saw two men run past him just after 2 a.m., and he shined his flashlight in the face of one of the men. The man appeared to be white, he said, which is what Smollett said, too. The Osundairos are black. Uche said in his opening statement that it’s possible a third person was involved in the attack.

When he met with prosecutors last year, the guard testified that he felt pressured to “pump something out that I didn’t see.” On cross-examination, assistant special prosecutor Sean Wieden called the encounter the guard had “very, very fast” and a “2-second interaction.”

The defense also called Empire show-runner Brett Mahoney as a witness. Mahoney, who is based in Los Angeles, said studio leaders were very upset when the learned about the racist hate mail Smollett has received. “We took it very seriously,” he said.