For two weeks, I've been watching this Jussie Smollett episode play out. Yesterday, cops laid out the charges of a fake report (fake assault), and there's going to be some court action. The idea of a year in a Chicago jail? Possible, but I doubt it.
My curiosity is over why you'd go and do something like this. The cops, through various witnesses, finally came to the 'why', and it leads back to the salary.
The experts say that Smollett was paid $65,000 per episode of Empire. Like a lot of shows, the producers will reach a stage where the number of actors involved in the show.....will be added up and in some simple way.....they can't afford to have the top twelve actors of the show appear in all 18 episodes of each year. So they break the news....the show will continue on and you will still be character 'X', but instead of 18 shows (for Smollett, $65,000 per show)....he probably was being told that things were fine but he'd only appear in fourteen shows (my humble guess) in the next season. And if you add the numbers up, he was taking a $280,000 pay-cut for the next season.
In his frame of mind, he figured that if he hoaxed up an assault...got some pity, that they'd raise the show level back to a full 18-episode season.
Now? I think off Empire, he's finished. If he does a year of jail-time.....it'll help the producers to drop the character.
Lost respect? By the time he pays off the lawyers, fines, and settles the mess, there's likely no cash reserves left, and Smollett will end up as a Uber-driver. A pretty sad fall for a guy to suffer.
