The Critic Magazine

Doubling down on a fraud

IN MARCH OF THIS YEAR the biracial gay actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in county jail for planning a hoax attack against himself in Chicago in 2019 and making false police reports. His alleged attackers had worn ski masks, berated him with racial and homophobic slurs, told him he was in “MAGA country” — “Make America Great Again” — poured an unidentified liquid on him, and left a noose around his neck.

When a police investigation revealed a month later that he had paid two Nigerian brothers, who were his gym buddies, to perpetrate the attack, his credibility was shattered. The speculation was that sympathy for Smollett as the victim of a hate attack might have aided him in pay negotiations with his employers.

At the time, some commentators made passing reference to another hoax attack from the late 1980s, the Tawana Brawley case.

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