Jussie Smollett Says He Didn’t Hesitate to Attend BET Awards: ‘I Am Happy to Be Here With Mines’
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Jussie Smollett hit the BET Awards red carpet on Sunday night (June 26), marking one of his first events since his trial.
While chatting with Extra‘s Rachel Lindsay on the red carpet, the former Empire actor said he did not hesitate to attend the awards ceremony. “Not here, not here,” he said. “I made the commitment to myself to go where the love is. If you see me on a carpet, I made a choice to be there and I made the choice to be there with my people with love and respect. Just know I am happy to be here and I am happy to be here with mines.”
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He also discussed the BET+ film B-Boy Blues, which he co-wrote with James Earl Hardy, the author of the book series. “It’s so meaningful,” he said. “I grew up with ‘B-Boy Blues’ as the book, so to be able to be embraced by James Earl Hardy… We were able to make a timeless love story that doesn’t necessarily look like every other love story, but no love story is like the next, but we still identify with love… I grew up with ‘Jason’s Lyric,’ ‘Boomerang’… ‘Pretty Woman’… and I identify with all of them, even though I am a gay man. I identify because I identify with love.”
His legal ordeal first began in January 2019, when he reported that two men had attacked him on a street in Chicago, hanging a noose around his neck while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and declaring, “This is MAGA country.”
He was sentenced in March 2022 to 150 days in jail for faking the hate crime after a jury found Smollett guilty on five counts of felony disorderly conduct. He was released from jail after serving just six days behind bars while his case makes its way through the appeals process.
