'Angered and devastated' Jussie Smollett denies orchestrating attack, despite police investigation

After the Chicago Police Department has allegedly "shifted" their investigation on the Jussie Smollett attack, the actor vehemently denied orchestrating the attack and is "angered and devastated" over these allegations.

News of the "planned attack" emerged after outlets reported that the two brothers who were arrested for the crime were released without charges. Smollett might be the mastermind behind his own "hate crime," as his alleged attackers have spoken up and revealed the "Empire" actor's involvement in what they claimed is a staged attack. According to these two men, the "Empire" star paid both of them to stage the incident.

The suspects, identified as Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, Smollett hired them for $3500 to attack him. After the attack was done, he promised them another $500. They even revealed that they rehearsed the attack a couple of days before it actually happened and that the actor even paid for the rope they used during his assault.

CPD investigators allegedly believe that these men indeed get paid to carry out the attack, and are fully cooperating with authorities to get to the bottom of the case.

Chicago police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi confirmed the news in a statement, saying that it has shifted their angle of investigation.

“We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the Empire case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation. We’ve reached out to the Empire cast member’s attorney to request a follow-up interview.”

As for Jussie's camp, his lawyers also released a statement expressing the actor's anger and devastation over the news.

“As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with. He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack. Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”

The Initial Statement

Jussie Smollett's vicious attack was first announced in the news a couple of weeks back, but now that more people have been involved in investigating the crime, Chicago Police announced that they have "shifted" their perspective on the case, which has "angered and devastated" the actor.

The actor's police report first said that he was attacked by two unidentified men near his apartment in Chicago at about 2 AM while he was walking to a nearby Subway restaurant. When he escaped, he had multiple wounds on his face, a rope around his neck, and remnants of what he described to be an unknown chemical that was poured on him. Smollett also said that the two men spewed racial and homophobic slurs at him during the attack, as he is black and openly gay.

With the new information gathered by the police, it seems the investigation on the attack isn't close to getting done anytime soon. Instead, the CPD will continue to study all angles of the case in hopes of finding the truth about the issue.