It’s hard to believe it has been six years since the Smollett hoax, but it was Jan. 29, 2019 when it happened. Today, Smollett agreed to settle a civil suit with the city by paying $50,000 to the local charity of his choice.
Last month, federal court records revealed the city and Smollett had reached a settlement agreement, but terms of the deal were not made public until Thursday, when the city’s Law Department confirmed Smollett has agreed to make a $50,000 charitable donation in exchange for dismissing the lawsuit. Smollett will make the donation to Building Brighter Futures Center for the Arts, a local organization that provides community, health, and education opportunities for Chicago’s underprivileged youth.
“The City believes this settlement provides a fair, constructive, and conclusive resolution, allowing all the parties to close this six-year-old chapter and move forward,” a Law Department spokesperson said.
I’m sure most readers remember some of the details of the hoax. Smollett claimed two white men in red caps had assaulted in the middle of a freezing night after he went out for a sandwich at Subway. The shouted “This is MAGA country!” during the alleged assault. Smollett claimed to have fought them off and then called the police.
When police arrived at his apartment he still had a kind of noose around his neck that he said one of the assailants had placed there. He also claimed to have been sprinkled with an “unknown chemical substance,” possibly bleach.
None of his story made sense. MAGA does not rule the streets of Chicago and even if they did they wouldn’t likely be out at 2 am looking for victims on a night when the city was in the midst of a polar vortex that made it colder than the surface of Mars.
Smollett had apparently planned the attack to take place where cameras could capture it and he would release the video of his battle with the assailants. What he didn’t know is that the cameras in the area were pointed another direction so his staged scene wasn’t caught on video.
Soon the truth came out as two Nigerian-American brothers who had been extras on Smollett’s TV show “Empire” confessed to having committed the fake crime against him for money. There was video of them buying the supplies used in the attack. Police were able to track their movements from their home all the way to the scene of the crime and back using cameras and other records.
Smollett would have gone to jail for the hoax and filing a false report if not for a sweetheart deal that only required him to do 16 hours of community service and forfeit a $10,000 bond. A special counsel was appointed and in Feb. 2020 Smollett was charged with six counts of felony disorderly conduct. In Dec. 2021 he was found guilty on five of the six counts and sentenced to 150 days in jail and $120,000 in restitution.
However, Smollett was released less than a week later pending his appeal of the verdict. In March 2023, his attorneys appealed the 150 day sentence and it was initially upheld. But in Nov. 2024 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the entire case needed to be thrown out on the grounds that the trial was double jeopardy, i.e. Smollett had already been sentenced for his crime with the initial deal for 16 hours of community service and losing his $10,000 bond money.
Meanwhile, the civil case filed against him by the city was still pending and that’s the one he settled today. Smollett, posted a lengthy statement proclaiming his innocence.
Jussie Smollett largely got away with a hoax that briefly outraged the whole country. But at least we’ll always have this Daily Show clip to remember him.
That may be my favorite, but Dave Chappelle’s bit on this was also hilarious.
Thanks for all the laughs, Jussie.
