“I’m beyond embarrassed. I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies. I had a flash of my whole life, of my childhood, my youth, getting beaten.
Of course, there’s some doubt. I’m telling you that because I love him so much. That’s the torture that I’m in right now, because it’s literally if it were to happen to your son and your child, how would you feel? You would feel, Please, God, please let there be that glimmer of hope that there is some truth in this story. That’s why it’s been so painful. It was a flood of pain.
I had to detach myself and stop calling him, because it was taking away the time I have for my kids, the time I have for my partner. It was affecting my spirit and other shows, everything.”Lee Daniels speaking to Vulture about the Jussie Smollett scandal.
Related: Here’s the audio from Jussie Smollett’s 911 call when he was “attacked”
BornTo
He was praying to god that it was true? Are you freaking kidding me?
eros1405
Yeah, I understand him praying that what happened was true. Cause if it was false, than that would mean that this person that he loved like a son was the type of person that would lie about something so horrible and disgusting.
Cam
It’s cute when the anti-LGBT accounts purposely try to misunderstand.
You know exactly what he meant. He didn’t want to have to believe his friend was a liar.
But of course, your goal is to use any excuse to attack someone who is openly LGBT and not a bigot.
Brian
Are you capable of taking like a normal person Cam? Why do you have to put “anti LGBT account”, which replaced “Russian troll” in 95% of your posts? Why can’t you just comment without constantly accusing whoever you’re responding to of being something nefarious, because you disagree with them? No wonder Queerty banned your DCGuy screen name.
Stop acting mentally ill and just write like a normal human being. It’s beyond old.
Cam
@Brian
Maybe for the same reason that you couldn’t argue with any point I made but merely decided to lash out at that fact that I am calling out obvious troll accounts here to attack LGBTQ people.
If you’re more angry at them being called out than you are at them being here defending bigots and attacking the community, that is very interesting.
marion
The fact he accepts and acknowledges it was a lie speaks volumes to his character.
Brian
Right? Especially after the rest of the cast banded together to say they still believe him, which just made them look like a bunch of idiots.
MHaumesser
The only part of his statement I find disheartening is that he doesn’t speak to Jussie anymore. Yes he did something stupid but does that mean all his friends should turn against him? Is that where we are in the world these days? Is everyone fair weather?
Cam
In fairness, this wasn’t an instance of somebody not returning a casserole dish or forgetting to show up to a birthday party.
This was somebody whose actions could have wrecked the employment of hundreds of people, and as the owner of the show, why wouldn’t this guy be infuriated? If you had a friend at work that almost got you fired and nearly destroyed your career I don’t think you’d be that eager to go out for beers.
Toofie
When you back up a friend’s horror story publicly and find out he was lying, yeah, that damages a friendship.
RyanMBecker
I might agree with you had Smollet admitted his guilt and apologized to all those he’s hurt and embarrassed. But he’s been defiant, and even suing the police for “malicious prosecution.” Sorry, if he can’t show contrition, why should anyone want to be dragged down with his lies?
darkanser
Jussie Smollet’s reputation has taken a serious PR hit because of this. Truthfully, I and I’m sure a lot of people have lost a lot of respect for him. I wonder if he’ll be able to recover professionally from this.
Brian
No way. He’s poison now.
Doug
I also wanted to believe JS at first… mainly because it never occurred to me that someone would set up a scenario the way he did. I don’t feel embarrassed or bad about that. It seems like a lot of pro-Trump people are loving the fact that it was a lie. It hasn’t changed my view of Trump at all… he’s still a jerk.
Black Pegasus
I can truly understand the emotional tug of war Lee Daniels is facing. On one hand he’s an incredibly loyal person to his friends (especially those within the LGBT community) and on the other hand he has a business to run. Jussie Smollett threw a huge F**K YOU to everything his cast mates and producers worked so hard for. That dude is toxic.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Lee did what a true caring friend would instinctively do. Rush to a friend’s defense try to protect and ensure his physical and mental safety.
Once he saw came to the sad realization it was an elaborate despicable charade he rightfully felt a sense of betrayal. Smollett’s actions gave the right wing haters a tremdous amount of ammunition to continue their non stop barrage of relentless attacks on our community.
nitejonboy
Glad some member of that idiotic cast of Empire has come to their senses, the rest of the cast still says he’s innocent….though the truth of the matter is, it’s a good thing that he DID believe Jussie at first, we should always believe the victim until there’s proof otherwise..victims need support not doubts and criticisms. I believed him too until the truth came out. Never stop believing in victims just because of one bad apple.