Jussie Smollett's 'Empire' scenes cut in wake of alleged hate crime

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Jussie Smollett’s ‘Empire’ Scenes Cut In Wake Of Alleged Hate Crime

The investigation into the alleged hate crime against Empire actor Jussie Smollett has begun to affect his work according to TMZ.

In the wake of growing speculation on whether or not the attack was orchestrated, reports state that Smollet’s role on the show has been significantly decreased. For example, a source close to production says that Jussie was to be featured 9 scenes plus in a big musical act during the penultimate episode. He’s now been cut down to 5 scenes and the musical portion has been completely removed. Re-writes and edits happen all the time during production, but the source seems to be indicating that this is being done to take the focus off of Jussie.

The focus will now be on the ensemble cast and Jussie’s featured storyline will be couched. In fact, it’s said that he will only be on set two times this week.

Jussie’s hate crime case will be presented to a Grand Jury early this week and a TMZ source in the Chicago P.D. says the plan is to show evidence that he filed a false police report and staged the attack.

Guess we’ll all have to wait and see how this plays out. It’s not beyond the police to lie, especially in Chicago.

What do you make of all this?