{"id":4949,"date":"2019-04-29T00:15:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T07:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=4949"},"modified":"2019-04-29T00:15:35","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T07:15:35","slug":"is-smollett-in-or-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2019\/04\/29\/is-smollett-in-or-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Smollett In or Out?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cJussie Smollett<\/strong>.  Two months ago, the Empire <\/strong>actor was attacked by two Trump
\n<\/strong>supporters who turned out to be Nigerian weightlifters.  But then, Jussie was arrested
\nfor working with them to fake a hate crime.  But then, the charges were dropped
\nfor no reason.  And then, Jussie said the brothers really did attack him,
\nbut they were in whiteface.  And now, the story\u2019s starting to get weird\u2026
\nI don\u2019t know who\u2019s writing The Jussie Smollett Story<\/strong>, but they deserve a raise.\u201d <\/em><\/span>  
\n\u2013 <\/em>Trevor Noah<\/strong>\u2019s take on the latest twists and turns in the Jussie Smollett\u2019s story \u2013
\nwhich we\u2019ll cover later in this column.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On to Jussie Smollett<\/strong>.  Since I know you\u2019re not watching Empire<\/em><\/strong> anymore, I can tell you that his character got married last week.  For these last two episodes of the season, he\u2019ll be on his honeymoon.  While no official decision has been made about whether the show or Jussie will be back next season, his co-stars have banded together and issued a statement asking that Smollett be rehired.  \u201cWe understand the past months have been difficult to process \u2013 sometimes the headlines brought more confusion than clarity, yet we now have a conclusion to this ordeal.\u201d  The letter continues: \u201cThroughout Empire<\/em>\u2019s five seasons working with Jussie and watching how he has conducted himself throughout this traumatic event, we have come to know not just the character Jussie portrays, but also truly come to know Jussie\u2019s personal character.  He is kind.  He is compassionate.  He is honest and above all he is filled with integrity.\u201d  I dunno about all THAT!  The letter also says, \u201cHe is also innocent and no longer subject to legal uncertainty with the criminal charges against him having been dropped.  We are confident in his lawyer\u2019s assurance that the case was dismissed because it would not have prevailed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Jussie\u2019s legal problems are far from over.  The City of Chicago is suing him for the cost of the investigation.  And now those hot Nigerian brothers are suing Jussie\u2019s lawyers in federal court for defamation.  They claim that Smollett paid them \u201ca sum of money to stage the attack to benefit himself\u201d and that he \u201cdirected every aspect of the attack, including the location and the noose.\u201d  They\u2019re suing the lawyers because they \u201cmade these comments knowing they were untrue to distract from Mr. Smollett\u2019s farce and to promote themselves and the Geragos & Geragos Law Firm<\/em>.  Statements indicating Plaintiffs criminally battered Mr. Smollett without his consent are patently false and defamatory, as Mr. Smollett originated, planned, and orchestrated the attack.\u201d <\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s a gay angle.  Around the time of the \u201cattack\u201d, one of the brothers spent the night at Jussie\u2019s place.  Jussie is gay, and the brother (Abel<\/strong>) plays the stand-in for Jussie\u2019s love interest \u2013 which led to some sex rumors.  In the suit, Abel (who suddenly goes by the name Bola<\/strong>) says that just a rumor of someone having gay sex could put their entire family at risk.  \u201cSame-sex sexual activity is illegal in Nigeria, which can result in 14 years of imprisonment.  If the accused is married, the punishment is death by stoning\u201d.  Note to self \u2013 don\u2019t do a layover in Nigeria!  Is it just me, or is Jussie\u2019s life far more interesting than anything they\u2019re writing on Empire<\/em>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cJussie Smollett.  Two months ago, the Empire actor was attacked by two Trump supporters who turned out to be Nigerian weightlifters.  But then, Jussie was arrested for working with them to fake a hate crime.  But then, the charges were dropped for no reason.  And then, Jussie said the brothers really did attack him, but they were in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4950,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4949\/revisions\/4950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}