Actor-singer Jussie Smollett was sentenced Thursday to 150 days in jail for staging a racist and homophobic hate crime in 2019 and lying about it to police and in court.
“I am not suicidal,” Smollett said several times after the judge read the sentence. “If anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that.”
The 39-year-old former Empire star also insisted he was wrongfully convicted. “I did not do this. I am innocent,” he said. “If I did this then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of Black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community.”
After calling Smollett a “narcissist,” Judge James Linn sentenced him to 30 months of probation, with the first 150 days behind bars. Smollett was also ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago and a fine of $25,000.
Smollett is eligible to serve only half of his jail sentence if he demonstrates good behaviour.
Smollett claimed he was attacked by two white men wearing MAGA hats and shouting racist and homophobic slurs as he walked home from a Subway restaurant in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2019. He told police the men punched him, poured bleach on him and tried to put a noose around his neck.
An investigation led to the arrest of brothers Olabinjo Osundairo and Abimbola Osundairo, who are Black. They were later released without charges and, by mid-February 2019, Smollett was being accused of orchestrating the attack.
Smollett, who played Jamal Lyon on Empire, has released only one album, 2018’s Sum of My Music.