Jussie Smollett’s conspiracy theory

Like a cold sore that pops up when your immune system is busy elsewhere, or a text-thread chain that you thought had concluded, Jussie Smollett has returned to the conversation. He has a new single from Rowdy Records, a movie (which he directed, co-wrote, and stars in) on Tubi, a role in the Fox reality series ‘Special Forces’ that airs in September and he features in a Netflix documentary, The Truth About Jussie Smollett? that airs later this month. Now he’s doing interviews as well.

In a chat with Variety’s Tatiana Siegel this week, Smollett claims that the alleged hate-crime at the hands of two MAGA-hat wearing, noose-holding, bleach-splashing white guys he experienced in 2019, later revealed to the world as a hoax, was, in fact, not a hoax. Not only did it happen, he says, but it was part of a deeper conspiracy that involved the Chicago Police Department and then-Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

“I’m not an investigative reporter or a detective,” Smollett tells Siegel. “I can’t sit and tell you exactly, beat by beat, what happened. I can only tell you what did not happen. And what did not happen is the story that’s been out there for almost seven years, that somehow I would have even a reason to do something as egregious as this.”

On the one hand, Smollett is small potatoes, a strange E! True Hollywood story sidebar to the era when woke peaked and everything was a hate crime. When the farce of his situation came to light, the bubble popped, the fever broke and we all had a nice laugh. Jussie got a (later-overturned) conviction for felony disorderly conduct, and the Nigerian brothers who he drew into his scheme wrote a book called Bigger Than Jussie: The Disturbing Need for a Modern-Day Lynching.

But now he’s back, certainly not bigger than ever, but giving it another shot, and showing that, no matter how much someone disgraces themselves in American life, there’s always an avenue for a comeback, as long as people are willing to self-perpetuate myths and accept a little debasement. “Every single other person’s story has changed multiple times,” Smollett says in the interview. “Mine has never. I have nothing to gain from this.”

In fact, he has everything to gain. He can gain money, a shred of his former stellar reputation, and, most importantly, publicity. “Every time I have to go do something now, I tell myself, ‘Time to be Whitney Houston,’” he tells Variety. “It’s like a role that you’re playing when you go out there, where it’s who you are, but it’s not really who you are.”

It doesn’t matter who Jussie Smollett really is in private, or in his own mind. He could be the kindest and tenderest son, brother, friend, coworker and fiancé who ever lived. But to the public, he’s someone who tried to exploit a tense political climate around race for personal gain, and failed in the stupidest way possible. The grift is eternally real, and in his comeback apology tour he’s acting just as disingenuous as he did during his headline-grabbing moment. If he’s Whitney Houston, then I’m Charles Dickens.

Smollett has got less juice than the average real housewife or B-tier podcaster. But in a world where Netflix has its own reality universe, and where reality stars and former A-list celebrities can endlessly compete for cash and publicity on various platforms, there may still be a path forward for Jussie. Bottom feeders can survive in a rich media ecosystem. Sometimes, they even rise to the top.