{"id":267605,"date":"2019-02-15T09:19:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b1015394"},"modified":"2019-02-15T09:19:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:19:13","slug":"fox-denies-writing-jussie-smollett-off-empire-amid-staged-attack-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/music-news\/fox-denies-writing-jussie-smollett-off-empire-amid-staged-attack-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox Denies Writing Jussie Smollett Off Empire Amid Staged Attack Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Jussie<\/p>\n

Cindy Barrymore\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fox is slamming reports\u00a0Jussie Smollett<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was going to be written off\u00a0Empire<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“The idea that Jussie Smollett has been, or would be, written off of\u00a0Empire<\/em>\u00a0is patently ridiculous,” 20th Century Fox Television and Fox Entertainment stated. “He remains a core player on this very successful series and we continue to stand behind him.”<\/p>\n

The rumors started spreading on Thursday after ABC7 published a report<\/a> claiming “multiple sources” had told the news outlet police were investigating whether Smollett and two men had staged his attack because he was being written off the show. However, the Chicago Police Department denied these claims.<\/p>\n

“Media reports about the\u00a0Empire<\/em>\u00a0incident being a hoax are unconfirmed by case detectives,”\u00a0Anthony Guglielmi<\/strong>, chief communications officer for the Chicago Police Department, tweeted. “Supt\u00a0Eddie Johnson<\/strong>\u00a0has contacted\u00a0@ABC7Chicago\u00a0to state on the record that we have no evidence to support their reporting and their supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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ABC7 also claimed a “a source familiar with the investigation” had told its team “Smollett failed to appear for an interview with detectives” that day but had “since spoken with police.”<\/p>\n

As mentioned in Guglielmi’s tweet, superintendent Johnson contacted ABC7 to make it clear Smollett was still being treated as a victim and that the investigation around his attack is still ongoing.<\/p>\n

“Police are investigating whether the two individuals committed the attack-or whether the attack happened at all,” the Chicago police told the news outlet.<\/p>\n

Smollett also issued his own statement.<\/p>\n

“Today Jussie did answer routine follow-up questions for Chicago Police Department and continues to cooperate,” the actor told ABC7.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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It has been over two weeks since the\u00a0Empire\u00a0<\/em>star was allegedly attacked<\/a> on Jan. 29 and investigators are starting to make headway in the case.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Chicago PD revealed there are two persons of interest<\/a>\u00a0who are being questioned in connection to the alleged attack. According to Smollett, the two assailants shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him, put a rope around his neck and poured an unknown chemical substance on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jussie addressed the alleged attack, his fears and more on a recent interview with\u00a0Good Morning America<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“I’m pissed off.\u00a0It’s the attackers, but it’s also the attacks. You know, at first it was a thing of, if I tell the truth, that’s it, because it’s the truth. Then it became a thing of like, oh, how can you doubt that? How do you not believe that? It’s the truth. And then it became a thing of, oh, it’s not necessarily that you don’t believe that this is the truth, you don’t even want to see the truth,” he emotionally defended.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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No charges have been made in connection to the attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Don’t miss E! News<\/em> every weeknight at 7, only on E!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

via:: E! Online<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cindy Barrymore\/Shutterstock Fox is slamming reports\u00a0Jussie Smollett\u00a0was going to be written off\u00a0Empire. “The idea that Jussie Smollett has been, or would be, written off of\u00a0Empire\u00a0is patently ridiculous,” 20th Century Fox Television and Fox Entertainment stated. “He remains a core player on this very successful series and we continue to stand behind him.” The rumors started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-267605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 13:36:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIDN - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}