The Chicago Police Department is saying “Empire” star Jussie Smollett orchestrated an entire hate-crime attack against himself in part because he was “dissatisfied with his salary.”
During a press briefing Thursday morning, the Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson spoke about the reasoning behind Smollett’s “publicity stunt.” Johnson called the whole incident a “hoax” and was visibly angry. (RELATED: Jussie Smollett Arrested After Alleged ‘MAGA’ Hoax)
I need someone to tell me exactly how much Smollett makes in a year. I do know that it’s far more than what the average American makes, which makes the actions he took to increase his salary even crazier. According to CNBC, the average median household income was $61,372 in 2017.
While Smollett’s current salary is unknown, an article published by Fox Business claims he was making $20,000 per episode of “Empire” in 2016. That’s $360,000 after he’s completed an entire season of filming. You don’t see regular people going around allegedly staging attacks to increase their salaries, never mind people with that kind of money.
Would this staged attack even have earned him a bigger salary? I can’t imagine increased exposure over an incident like this would have prompted Fox Broadcasting Company to pay him much more. Unless he was planning on profiting from a GoFundMe account.
After the letter didn’t grab him enough attention, Johnson says Smollett “concocted a story about being attacked.” When the real motive behind why Smollett paid for the attack became known, Johnson said, “Quite frankly, it pissed everyone off.”
It has pissed off most of America, as well.
Johnson also pointed out that because the brothers had gloves on during the attack the scratches on Smollett’s face were done by Smollett himself.
This whole situation is crazy, but this guy went as far as to hurt himself to convince people this attack was real. That’s an entirely different kind of committed. Maybe this entire hoax would have worked if he’d been smarter.