Police in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday are holding a press conference for the case of Empire actor Jussie Smollett. They announced on Wednesday that he was charged with disorderly conduct for filing a false police report.
Smollett turned himself in to police Thursday morning.
The actor claimed that on January 29, he was out to get a meal at Subway when two men attacked him, yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him, put a rope on him, and poured what he believed to be bleach on him. The phrase “This is MAGA country,” was yelled, he said. Smollett suggested that the attack happened because he is a critic of President Donald Trump.
The case met with vocal skepticism, at least from some conservative pundits. They called his story outlandish.
ABC 7 Chicago reported on February 14 that police suspected Smollett of a hoax, but the Chicago Police Department’s top spokesman Anthony Guglielmi pushed back hard on the report. They treated the actor as a victim in this situation. Soon, however, cops publicly began changing their tone.
Cops previously said they found two persons of interest in the case. These men were caught on surveillance footage in the area of the alleged attack, but they are no longer said to be suspects in the incident.
[Screengrab via Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for ABA]