‘Like something out of Looney Tune adventures’: Jussie Smollett testifies he was jumped on Chicago street by 2 men
CHICAGO — Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett testified Monday he was on a mission for some eggs on the night he was attacked in downtown Chicago by two men in ski masks who yelled racial and homophobic epithets at him and put a makeshift noose around his neck.
It was about 2 a.m. on one of the coldest nights of the year. Smollett, whose flight from New York had been delayed by hours, was driven back to his Streeterville apartment by his music manager. He rolled a marijuana cigarette but did not smoke it, then put on a knit sweater and set out for Walgreens, he told jurors. It was closed, so he decided to head to Subway instead.
On the way back, he heard someone yell “Empire!” at him. He said he kept walking. “I get that all the time … no shade, but I just don’t respond to that.”
That’s when Smollett said he heard the words “(expletive) Empire (racial slur).”
“I turned around. I was already pissed off,” Smollett said. “I turned around infuriated not even thinking.”
What happened next, Smollett said, was “like something out of
