Jussie Smollett Says He’s Spent $3M Fighting Hoax Case: “I Don’t Want to Have a Felony on My Record for Something I Didn’t Do”

Jussie Smollett is speaking out about his ongoing legal case stemming from a 2019 racist and homophobic attack that he allegedly staged against himself.

The Empire alum, who recently returned to the big screen in The Lost Holliday — which he directed, co-wrote, produced and stars in — spoke about his ongoing effort to appeal his 2021 disorderly conduct conviction after he was accused of staging that attack and lying about it to the Chicago police.

In a sit-down interview with Entertainment Tonight seemingly done as part of his Lost Holliday promotion, which has included a smattering of interviews, the actor continued to maintain his innocence, saying he’s still fighting for the truth of what happened to emerge.

“I want to have all of these things in my life, and I don’t want to have a felony on my record for something that I didn’t do,” Smollett said in part. “That’s what we’re fighting for. I know that on the surface it probably seems like why doesn’t he just serve the time, why doesn’t he just let this go. It would be easier if I had in fact done this to say that I did it. I wouldn’t have spent almost $3 million of my own money. I wouldn’t have had a trial.”

After Smollett was arrested in 2019 and accused of staging the attack, the charges against him were dropped and then refiled a year later and he was convicted in 2021 of five felony counts of disorderly conduct. He’s since appealed that conviction, with the case currently being reviewed by the Illinois Supreme Court.

He admits that as an “entertainer” and “businessman,” he should stop fighting.

“But as a human being and as a man, as a Black man and as an openly gay Black man, I have a problem with letting them win on something they shouldn’t be able to,” Smollett said. “I’m a grown man and something happened. I can’t tell exactly what did happen, but I can tell you what did not happen. That’s what I have to sit on. No matter how much people are yelling in my face, saying ‘You’re a liar, you’re a liar.’ No, I’m not. No, I’m not. I don’t want them to believe that, but if that is what they believe, that’s on you.”

Looking back on the nearly six years since Smollett said he was attacked in early 2019, he says there are “a million things” he would have done differently. Specifically, he regrets doing a high-profile sit-down about what he claimed happened to him, before he was charged with disorderly conduct, with Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts.

“I wish I hadn’t done the interview,” Smollett said. “I never wanted to. I watched it, and I was mortified.”

Smollett last year reportedly entered rehab for substance abuse, something that he said he was told he “couldn’t” do previously.

“I’ve wanted to do it for a number of years. And to be quite honest, I was told that I couldn’t,” he said.

He argued that one of the challenges of “fighting the very things that are untrue” is how “some truths did come into play that they used to kind of to prove things that were not true.”

“So there were those moments where I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, my life is kind of — oh, well, I didn’t do that.’ And they’re like, ‘But you did this.’ And I’m like ‘Ah, I did do that. I did buy that.’ And there are things like that that I’ve had to talk to my family about, that I’ve had to talk to friends about,” he said. “I’m OK with accepting responsibility for things that I’ve actually done. I’m just not OK with accepting responsibility for things that I did not do.”

Smollett maintained that he has not changed his story throughout this ordeal.

“I’ve stood by, not my truth but the truth for the entire time, almost six years,” he said. “I haven’t switched my story up. I haven’t changed anything that I ever said. I stand by every single thing that I’ve ever said. Everyone else in the situation, every single person, has changed their story numerous times.”