A jury in Chicago found disgraced actor Jussie Smollett guilty on five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct in December 2021, concluding that the former “Empire” actor had staged a fake hate crime against himself, then lied to police about it.
Instrumental in the scheme were two Nigerian-born brothers whom Smollett paid to place a noose around his neck, rough him up, and shout racial and homophobic slurs in view of a street camera.
Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo — aspiring actors whom Smollett knew from the Chicago set of “Empire” and from the gym — recently broke their silence and spoke candidly to Fox Nation about their dealings with Smollett in a new special entitled “Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax.”
The Osundairo brothers denounced Smollett in the interview as a “crazy fraudster” who sought to deceive the people of Chicago and the broader American public in order to advance his career and status as a “poster boy for activism.”
“I thought he was a good actor, but I also was thinking that this guy’s a fraud. This guy is really sitting here just lying to these people, lying through his teeth and not caring,” said Abimbola. “I think he shed a tear. … This dude crazy, man. He shed a tear, man. This dude wild.”
Smollett’s apparent indifference to the possible incrimination of two innocent supporters of then-President Donald Trump as a result of his hoax did not stagger the brothers so much as the actor’s commitment to the deception after the fact.
In his first interview after staging the hate hoax, Smollett tearfully told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in February 2019, “I will never be the man that this did not happen to. I am forever changed. … And I don’t subscribe to the idea that everything happens for a reason, but I do subscribe to the idea that we have the right and the responsibility to make something meaningful out of the things that happen to us, good and bad.”
Smollett lashed out at those who questioned his story, saying, “It’s not necessarily that you don’t believe that this is the truth. You don’t even want to see the truth. … I have to acknowledge the lies, and the hate. And it feels like if I had said it was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me much more. A lot more.”
TheBlaze previously reported that in his first post-conviction interview in June 2023, Smollett reflected on his remarks on “Good Morning America” and doubled down, saying that “every single word that [he] said in that interview was the truth.”
The Osundairo brothers told Fox Nation that Smollett’s serial lying was “insane. That’s when I really saw a different side of Jussie. Like, dude, really? This is when I knew that this dude was like a super villain.”
Despite Smollett’s rhetoric about racial justice, the brothers noted that he prioritized his lie over their well-being, having hanged them out to dry and refused to accept any accountability over what happened.
“I did feel betrayed by Jussie and what he had done. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t ready to say anything. Like, I was mute,” said Abimbola.
After helping Smollett craft a hoax the nation’s most powerful Democrats unquestioningly accepted as true, the Osundairo brothers told Fox Nation they flew to Nigeria, where they contemplated whether they had done a good job.
When pressed on whether they played “believable white supremacists,” Abimbola laughed, saying, “One hundred percent! Look at me.”
While Abimbola quipped about his performance, it was evidently good enough to convince Vice President Kamala Harris:
However, they did not ultimately fool law enforcement officials, who were waiting for the brothers upon their return to the United States.
“When I was getting off the plane, the customs agent was checking everyone’s passport, and when they got to me, they pulled me aside,” said Abimbola. “Two big-a** police officers came up – I was like damn, it’s over with. They got me.”
Forty-seven hours after being detained, the brothers opened up to police, noting that Jussie’s motive, while not made explicit during their conversations, was undoubtedly about increasing “his star level.”
“He wanted to be the poster child for activism,” said Olabinjo.
Abimbola added, “He wanted to be the hero for gay people, for black people.”
Judge James B. Linn speculated about Smollett’s motivations before issuing his sentence, saying, “You wanted to make yourself more famous” through the elaborate, “premeditated” caper and then “you threw a national pity party for yourself.”
As for their own motives, the brothers indicated they had hoped Smollett “could probably help us out with our careers.”
The Osundairo brothers reconstructed Smollett’s hate hoax for Fox Nation:
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