Jussie Smollett broke his silence while appealing his case involving the alleged 2019 hoax.
The 42-year-old actor, who maintains his innocence, opened up about the chaos and aftermath he was forced to face in the five years following the incident.
He said he had to learn how to ‘hold on for five more minutes,’ a close personal mantra he recites to himself in difficult times.
Back then, when he was accused of making false reports and staging a hate crime for media attention, he said he felt ‘numb’ and ‘couldn’t make sense of what people were actually thinking.’
At the time, he thought there was ‘no way’ the public could believe ‘a stupid rumor,’ the star — who completed a five-month stint in rehab earlier this year — told PEOPLE in an interview published on Saturday.
Jussie Smollett broke his silence for the first time since the alleged 2019 hoax; pictured September 25 in New York City
Five years ago, Smollett was embroiled in headlines after he said he was a victim of a hate crime on January 29, 2019.
He said he was attacked by two men while on his way home from a Subway sandwich shop late at night.
He claimed his attackers yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him, put a rope around his neck and doused him in bleach.
After law enforcement conducted an investigation, prosecutors claimed that Smollett orchestrated it to get media attention and paid $3,500 to the two Osundairo brothers for the allegedly staged attack.
A jury trial was held, and in December 2021, Smollett was found guilty of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports.
In March 2022, he was sentenced to 150 days in jail, ordered to pay a $25,000 fine as well as more than $120,000 in restitution for overtime expenses incurred by the Chicago Police Department.
Six days into his sentence, the actor was released on bail pending his appeal, which is still ongoing.
‘I was numb,’ the Empire star — who is currently on the road, promoting his sophomore feature film, The Lost Holliday — recalled.
The 42-year-old actor, who maintains his innocence, opened up about the chaos and aftermath he was forced to face in the five years following the incident; pictured May 2019 in Chicago
He said he had to learn how to ‘hold on for five more minutes,’ a close personal mantra he recites to himself in difficult times. Back then, when he was accused of making false reports and staging a hate crime for media attention, he said he felt ‘numb’ and ‘couldn’t make sense of what people were actually thinking’; pictured September 18 in Los Angeles
‘I didn’t know how to connect the dots,’ he continued. ‘I really genuinely did not know. I couldn’t make sense of what was going on, and I couldn’t make sense of what people were actually thinking. What exactly do they think happened? I couldn’t put two and two together.’
Smollett said he thought there was ‘no way’ the public could believe ‘a stupid rumor.’
‘They had a mission,’ he said about the ‘haters’ who were creating a majority of the noise.
‘I felt very disconnected from that. I still to this day can’t entirely make sense of, “What the f*** was that?” But obviously it was painful. I certainly am not going to sit here and try to act to the world as if I was fine.’
Since then, Smollett said he has done a lot of self-reflecting and healing, which he said was ‘difficult.’
‘We’re still dealing with the repercussions from that narrative. We’re still dealing with that every day.’
Smollett also described the day he was arrested, February 21, 2019, as his ‘darkest day.’ Now, he said he wants to ‘to move forward,’ adding, ‘I must’; pictured March 2019 in Chicago
In March 2022, he was sentenced to 150 days in jail, ordered to pay a $25,000 fine as well as more than $120,000 in restitution for overtime expenses incurred by the Chicago Police Department; pictured January 2019 in New York City
Smollett also described the day he was arrested, February 21, 2019, as his ‘darkest day.’
‘That was a pretty dark day because that’s when everything clicked to me of what was happening,’ he recalled. ‘A lot of things tested my strength, a lot of things tested my mental, but the one thing I never lost — I never started thinking that I am somebody that I’m not. That is the one thing that did not happen.’
Now, he said he wants to ‘to move forward,’ adding, ‘I must.’
‘I’m not going to sit here and victimize myself,’ he continued before saying that people often admit to crimes they did not commit because they feel it’s ‘the easier way out.’
‘I’m very well aware of my privilege in this situation. That’s why there’s a certain point where it’s just like, I can’t hold on to the pain,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m blessed to continue on and make film and make music and do the things that I was put down here by God to do.’
Six days into his sentence, the actor was released on bail pending his appeal, which is still ongoing; pictured August 31 in London
He said this perspective he holds now ‘hasn’t always been easy to look at like that,’ because there were other times when he was ‘so mad and just so bitter about it all.’
Smollett added that ‘the universe takes care of all things, and the universe shows the truth.’
‘You can stuff it down, you could tie a block of cement to the truth, [but] the truth is always going to float to the top. It might take longer depending on what’s holding it down, but the truth will always float to the top.’
‘I’ve moved on and I know that the world, one day, and it might be long after I’m gone, who knows, but one day the world is going to fix this. I just can’t wait for that to happen, because I have a life to live,’ he concluded. ‘But the world is going to fix it all.’
