Jussie Smollett (, born June 21, 1982) is an American actor, filmmaker and singer. He began his career as a child actor in 1991 debuting in The Mighty Ducks (1992). From 2015 to 2019, Smollett portrayed musician Jamal Lyon in the Fox drama series Empire.
In January 2019, Smollett claimed to have been a victim of a hate crime, but police later determined that he had staged the attack with two acquaintances. He was initially charged with filing a false police report, but charges were dropped after he completed community service and forfeited $10,000. In 2020, a special prosecutor re-indicted him, and he was convicted on five counts in December 2021. He was sentenced to jail in March 2022, although his release was ordered after six days. The sentence was upheld on appeal in 2023, but the Illinois Supreme Court later reversed the conviction in 2024 on the basis that he had fulfilled the plea agreement made in 2019.
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Early life
Jussie Smollett was born in Santa Rosa, California, to Joel and Janet (née Harris) Smollett. His mother is African-American and Irish, and his father is Jewish. Smollett is biracial and Jewish. He has said that his father would "kill you if you called him white". His father was absent from his life for a significant portion of his childhood. He has three brothers and two sisters: Jake, Jocqui, Jojo, Jurnee, and Jazz, several of whom are also actors. The family moved to the Elmhurst neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens when he was two years old, then to Los Angeles when he was about seven.
