The Truth About Jussie Smollett?

0:00Rebecca Lavoie:I'm Rebecca Lavoie and this is You Can't Make This Up.

0:15Rebecca Lavoie:You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films. On today's episode, we take a closer look at the Netflix documentary film The Truth About Jussie Smollett. The first line out of his mouth was, yeah, it's a bunch of bullshit. I said, is that on the record? He said, no, no, no, no, no, that is not on the record. I said, well, what can I tweet? What can I say? He goes, just say that Chicago police are taking this very seriously, but that we're skeptical. Today, we're talking to director Goggin Rahill. Sympathy for Jussie Smollett turned to outrage after police said the hate crime he reported was a hoax, claiming the TV star paid two men to attack him.

0:53Rebecca Lavoie:Though his accomplices confessed, Smollett has maintained his innocence. Now, he points to new evidence he says proved the racially charged assault was real. In the Netflix documentary, The Truth About Jussie Smollett, we hear directly from the actor about his claim he was beaten by racists that frigid night on a Chicago sidewalk. We also hear from police, journalists, and the two men who say Smollett paid them to fake the crime. The film also explores unexamined evidence, which questions whether the assailants were the two black men who took responsibility or whether they were white men like the actors said they were.

1:27Rebecca Lavoie:This is more the way that Jussie Smollett described his two attackers. That's when I started to think, could it be possible that Jussie Smollett is actually innocent?

1:52Rebecca Lavoie:And I'm joined now by director Gog and Rahill. Welcome to You Can't Make This Up. Hi, thanks for having me, Rebecca. So first things first, the title of your film is The Truth About Jussie Smollett? Tell us about the decision to put the question mark there. Well, I think this is a story which follows two concurrent narratives. They're competing narratives. And so the approach has been to tell both these stories and allow the viewer to sort of play jury, I suppose, and decide for themselves which narrative they are kind of leaning towards in terms of what they think really happened. And so that question mark, I think, sort of emphasizes that slightly unconventional sort of nature of documentary.

2:39Rebecca Lavoie:We do hear from Jesse Smollett himself. Is it fair that viewers may see him as an unreliable narrator? Well, I think there's been a lot about this story in the press. I remember the story when it came out. And so I remember the big news bites about the attack taking place. And then two weeks later, the police telling their investigation onto him, which switched the public narrative around him. And for me, I thought it was an open and shut case before I then mentioned into the story myself when I started doing this documentary. And so potentially people might be surprised to hear some of the things that he's saying.

3:14And also just to see that he is still proclaiming his innocence after all this time, which was a shock to me and is kind of what drew me to the documentary in the first place.

3:23Rebecca Lavoie:Not just proclaiming it, but staunchly proclaiming his innocence, for sure. Can you talk to me about the original discussion around this project? Was it, we need to get Jussie Smollett or we're not doing it? Or was there a plan to potentially do it without him? When I came on to the documentary, it was always in the air that Jussie's camp may be involved. And for me personally, you know, he hadn't told his side of the story before. that's what sort of made it really important for me to make this film, to sort of have, it's about him. He's at the center of all of this. Let's hear from the guy himself.

3:56My story has never changed. My story has remained intact. Trust me, there have been people that have come to me and say, just say that you did it, but why would I say that I did something if I didn't do it? For me personally, I spent a lot of time, a few months, kind of building a relationship with him. That was important for him to be in this film. You know, we've got all the key players in this film, which is what makes it so great. And I thought it would have been a shame if we didn't hear from Jesse as well as all these other voices.

4:23Rebecca Lavoie:You know, I'm curious about your role here because clearly you had to build the relationship and get the trust going in order to get him to contribute. He may have been reluctant to do so. How did you weigh your role as an interviewer in terms of challenging Jesse on his claims in real time? Did you do that? The thing is, this narrative is already out there. You know, it's been solidified that he faked this hate crime in the press. He went through trial and he was convicted. And we have the police narrative from the now retired chief of police and chief of detectives who were involved in leading the case.

4:59You know, they have a very strong line in this documentary that, you know, from their investigation, they believe that he did this. That, for me, is his challenge, you know. They made it up. Every single bit of it. For him to keep doubling down professing his innocence, despite the mountain of evidence that's to the contrary, makes me think he's just a very narcissistic and troubled young man. Everything around this case is the challenge to what he's saying. And we lay this all alongside each other in the film. And I just wanted to give him the space to say things the way that he says it happened.

5:45Rebecca Lavoie:Can you remind us briefly about Jesse's career, where he was in his life when this happened? He was, you know, a relatively well-known actor for some reason. He was like a household name. He was on a hit show, Empire, which is a few seasons in now, doing really well. He had a record deal at one point. He was very visible in the sort of activism space. It was a time where the Black Lives Matter movement was emerging. Me Too movement was in full swing. And he was very much part of that. So he was visible. He had a public profile for a number of reasons, a regular on talk shows. So that's what makes this case so fascinating.

6:27This celebrity reports something that would have been shocking even if it wasn't a celebrity happening to him. I think that's why it made the impact that it did.

6:36Rebecca Lavoie:Well, let's roll that back a little bit. On January 29th, 2019, Jesse's creative director called the Chicago police to report a crime. Can you remind us about what he said happened to him that night? Yeah, so you're right. It's 2019. It was an early Tuesday morning around 2 a.m. in January, so very cold outside. He had stepped out to get some food. He'd been stuck on a flight, and so he was hungry. He'd gotten late, and there was nothing in the house, so he stepped outside to get some food. He then reports that two men approach him shouting racist and homophobic slurs. They put a noose on his neck and say, this is MAGA country, and then beat him up in the street.

7:19And I think the whole thing lasts only kind of like a couple of minutes before they run away. And he walks back to his apartment.

7:25Rebecca Lavoie:So the police then come to his apartment. And what do they find when they first question Jesse? What does that seem like? Well, they walk into the apartment and, you know, we have all the footage from the body cams in the documentary, so we kind of are able to tell this part of the story incredibly well, which is great for a filmmaker. Good morning, sir. Any weapons or anything inside the apartment? The officers get to the apartment and they see the victim, an actor called Jussie Smollett. The reason I'm called is because of this shit. With a noose around his neck. You want to take it off or anything?

7:58So they arrive and Jussie is there with his manager, who reported the attack. And they step inside and Jesse is there and he has the noose around his neck that the attack has left around him.

8:10Rebecca Lavoie:Can you talk about how the media initially reacted to the story? Because of the time, as I was saying, it's, you know, Black Lives Matter is kind of emerging and there's a lot of discourse. We're becoming quite divided in 2019. And I think this case of this story sort of spoke to that division. Stars like Viola Davis, John Legend and Vivica Fox tweeting their support. Former Vice President Joe Biden weighing in, saying homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie. I've seen it last night. I think that's horrible. It doesn't get worse. There's a lot of outrage that this sort of crime would happen in America in 2019.

8:57And I think that was driving a lot of the outrage, particularly on celebrity Twitter and in the political sphere, because of the MAGA reference. Even Donald Trump kind of came out the next day and condemned the attack. So this was headline news. It was very attention grabbing at the time.

9:15Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. So a lot is made out of what's called demeanor evidence, whether someone acts in a way that people think they would act in the same situation. That's subjective. It's obviously unreliable. That being said, there were things about Jesse's actions that investigators said didn't ring true to them, right? So I think there were elements of the case that for whatever reason, a group of people were vocal about in the media that they couldn't understand. For example, why he was out late last night, why he still had the noose around his neck. It just felt questionable for a lot of people. Yeah. Not for everyone, I should say, but some factions found things sort of peculiar.

9:57And I'm like, wait a minute. Most victims of an assault like that, they're trying to get the heck out of Dodge because let's face it, who's to say these two guys that assaulted him won't come back? The last thing they're worried about is grabbing a sandwich bank. Chicago is going through what they call a polar vortex as well. So, you know, it's not just cold. It's, you know, minus 20 degrees out there. And so that was something that the press in particular kind of held on to in terms of not, fully being able to understand.

10:29Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. We heard from former police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, who said there was a lot of pressure to solve what became a very high profile case very quickly. Do you think that the pressure put on the police shaped their investigative tactics? I think it made them, it made it all a lot more urgent. Such a high profile case, I think something that they call a heater case, meant that they had to solve this quickly. They had to show that they had things under control in Chicago and that an attack like this wouldn't just be left unsolved. One of the things that really surprised me was the public statement that police were skeptical of his story.

11:06Rebecca Lavoie:That struck me as unusual. Did you think that was something that kind of stood out to you too as well? It seems unusual, for sure, that police would comment on their views on a case before an arrest or before it'd gone through the due process. I think that just speaks to the pressure they're under. That was mind blowing to get that kind of color on a case. That's never happened in my 15 year career, not for anything. The fact that he went on the record saying that they weren't buying his story was like, wow. I think they were just determined to kind of get to the bottom of this very quickly. Can you talk about the use of surveillance video?

11:45Rebecca Lavoie:I found it really interesting to sort of watch, you know, the men that they were trying to track and all these different cameras. So what kind of picture did that put together for the police? Well, in this day and age, you know, it's hard for something to go down in a metropolis without it being caught on some cameras. I think that it's kind of a usual investigatory path for any investigation that police undertake. They need to follow the footage, follow the CCTV footage, and that's what they were able to do. We see these guys running to the next camera and the next camera and the next camera and eventually get into a cab.

12:22We were able to follow the cab all the way to Roscoe Village. That was the kind of majority of their investigation, promising the area around where Jussie said this happened and just seeing what they could find. And, you know, there wasn't any footage of the attack itself. So it was even more important for them to create some sort of timeline based on who they could see in the area at the time and what their movements were and how that might be related to the attack.

12:48Rebecca Lavoie:It made me wonder, too, you know, a lot of us have doorbell cameras. I'm just curious, do you think that when people get these cameras, which are typically for personal use, that they expect them or think that they might be used in a police investigation someday. I think these doorbell cameras have been around for about 10 years now. And I think initially, I don't think people thought about that at all. But it's become such commonplace now. I think there's an expectation that they are just part of this surveillance infrastructure that the police lean upon to sort of solve investigations. I think it's just sort of taken as a given now.

13:19Rebecca Lavoie:In addition to hearing from Jesse, you have a really big get in brothers Ola and Bola Osundairo. Were they reluctant at all to come on camera? They're interesting because they've obviously been pushed into the limelight with this case. And, you know, we're trying to we're trying to tell the sort of definitive telling of this with all the key characters. And I think it'd be important for them to have their perspective told just as much as anyone else. I think they saw that. We grew up in Chicago. Our parents came here from Nigeria. I box, I model. I am just an all around great human being. That's my job.

13:58Their story hasn't changed since the trial, just as Jesse's happened. I think they wanted, if they knew that everybody was talking, I think they also were keen to have their perspective told as well.

14:09Rebecca Lavoie:Can you remind us, what is their story about how they got involved in what they say was a scheme to make it appear as though Jesse Smollett was attacked? They say, as we say in the film, while one of the brothers had a relationship with Jussie, they were friends, they'd been friends for about a year and a half before this happened, and this brother, Bowler, received a text from Jussie one day asking to meet Jussie by the studio which they filmed in Empire, and Jussie relayed to him that he needed some help in staging this attack. I want you to beat me up. I literally stopped in my tracks. I didn't quite understand what he meant.

14:52Rebecca Lavoie:So I was just there, dumbfounded, like, damn, this dude must be tweaking or crazy, or maybe it's the weed. It's basically as simple as that, that Jesse called on them to hatch this plan and fake an attack near his apartment. So part of the evidence against Jesse is that he wrote a check to Bola that police say was payment for staging the attack. But Jesse has a different explanation for that, right? Well, Bola is in the fitness world, among other things. And it's actually true that Jesse and Bola were engaged in a relationship around personal fitness regime. And so there's a friendship there. There was a personal training relationship there as well.

15:34And there is a note on that check referencing a fitness regime. That's what Jesse says the check was for. Hmm.

15:41Rebecca Lavoie:So what do investigators say the motive for the scheme was? This is kind of an interesting point in the story, actually, because the motive changes throughout the story of this investigation from the police's perspective. they first of all say it was part of Jussie's plan for him to be seen as some sort of victim of hate from a racist homophobic faction somewhere and that he would then use the video of the attack to then gain some attention and raise his profile. Jussie reports that he received a threatening letter actually a week before the attack and so police initially say that he faked that.

16:21Then the motive changes to Jesse needing more security protection because of the note and that ultimately the studio hadn't given him these extra protections that he was looking for. And so then created the attack to kind of create a bigger threat against him so that the studio would take the threat against him more seriously. Ultimately, I think the police are sort of saying this is someone who wanted to raise his profile and thus be able to leverage more payment for his next contract for the next series of Empire, for example. Something which Jussie denies and said that he's had a good relationship with Fox.

16:58He was paid well as an actor and director. And this is something that just wasn't the case at all.

17:04Rebecca Lavoie:Right. You know, I'm really curious about the public reaction to the police's claims that he faked it. I mean, there was a tremendous amount of outrage online, on the news, man on the street interviews. And, you know, this is Jesse Smollett. He's, you know, a supporting actor and yes, a popular show. But, you know, not a lot of people watch popular shows anymore with streaming and so forth. I wonder if the public's outrage was a product and maybe out of proportion for the alleged crime because of the initial media coverage of the alleged crime. Do you know what I mean? Sure, I think yes. I think people were asked to give sympathy towards this crime when they first heard about it.

17:45And then because of that, because of how I profile the crime was and how it entered into people's minds and create this idea of sympathy and this emotion, the sympathetic response to this crime, for them to hear that the police are now saying it didn't happen and that Jesse made it up, I think the public probably would have felt cheated in some way. and so then provoked an even stronger reaction than would usually be the case.

18:16Rebecca Lavoie:So at first, county prosecutors offered Jesse a deal where he would forfeit a bond in order to settle the matter and wouldn't have to admit to guilt. How did it go from that to later being convicted on six felony counts? Okay, so the attack being reported and then the police changing their investigation is kind of bonkers enough for this documentary, but then it kind of continues to kind of take these twists and turns. He is charged and he's indicted, but then the state prosecutor at the time drops these charges. She's a progressive prosecutor, one of the only progressive prosecutors in the country who believes in prosecuting less people, not more, and focusing limited resources on more violent crimes.

18:59This ultimately isn't a violent crime. And so the prosecutor, Kim Foxx, was satisfied. Jussie forfeits his bond, which is$10 ,000. And it's her belief that that's enough of a punishment for the level of the crime, for this fourth level felony, lowest felony that you could get, really. And she didn't see a need for it to go through a lengthy court system, an expensive court system process. Now, not everyone responded to that in the way that she probably would have intended. I think because he's a celebrity, people were worried that he was getting preferential treatment. And so that caused even more of an outrageous reaction from the public to think that he lied about this, which was the perception at the time in the press, and that now he's getting off Scott III because he was a celebrity.

19:44This then led to the Chicago establishment bringing another prosecutor on, a special prosecutor on, which was unusual in itself as well, and then for the charges to be reinstated and then for him to go to trial and be convicted.

19:57Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah, it's pretty nuts. I mean, the original prosecutor said that, you know, her first deal with him was basically the same deal she'd make with any citizen. So you think it was his celebrity and the fact that he had a platform and that so many people had heard about it. That was the issue here, because it seems to me like if you're a celebrity or not, you are a citizen and you should be treated equally. I see what makes this complicated is this idea of kind of court of public opinion and being tried in the media spotlight, that just sort of adds like an extra layer of complication to any judicial process.