Some people reinvent themselves; Jussie Smollett just replays the same script.
The disgraced Empire star has returned, this time on Netflix, doubling down on the innocence act in a documentary that already sounds like satire.
Titled The Truth About Jussie Smollett??—yes, with two question marks—it sets out to keep the 2019 hate-crime hoax alive as a debate. The director calls the “truth” a matter of interpretation, leaving audiences to decide if Smollett is a wronged man or still hustling sympathy.
Either way, he’s found the perfect stage for a role he refuses to drop: Jussie Smollett gets a Netflix doc to insist, again, he’s innocent.
Smollett’s story first hit headlines in January 2019, when he claimed two men attacked him in Chicago with racist and homophobic slurs.
Police later revealed he staged the whole thing with help from two brothers he paid. In 2021, he was convicted on five counts of disorderly conduct but spent only six days behind bars before appealing. By late 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction, ruling he couldn’t be retried, leaving him free to rebuild his image.
Now, the documentary leans into doubt rather than answers. Director Gagan Rehill says the film is less about facts and more about how people see truth, media, and the police. Smollett, meanwhile, keeps insisting his story never changed, brushing off critics as liars chasing headlines.
Netflix packages it as a conversation starter, but viewers know it’s really a rerun of one of the wildest scandals in recent pop culture.
Smollett can talk about truth all he wants, but his comeback still depends on selling doubt.
At least for now, Jussie Smollett gets a Netflix doc to insist, again, he’s innocent.
