Five months afterJussie Smollettclaimed that he was attacked in an alleged hate crime, surveillance footage of police entering the actor’s apartment has been released.
In the body cam footage, an officer asks Smollett if he wants to take off the white rope that is seen hanging around his neck.
“Yeah, I do, I just wanted you all to see it,” Smollett replies as he begins to take off the rope.
“There’s bleach on me,” Smollett, who wears a white and red sweater in the recording, explains to the officer. “They poured bleach on me.”
A male voice is then heard asking police if the conversation is being filmed before the man asks the officer that he “turn it off.”
According to CBS Chicago, the Chicago Police Department released almost 70 hours of video on Monday in relation to Smollett’s case.
At the end of January, Smollett claimed thattwo men attacked him— hurling racist and homophobic insults, dousing him with a chemical and slipping a rope around his neck — in an alleged homophobic and racist hate crime in Chicago sparking national outrage.
The case took a turn when authorities alleged he’d staged the whole thing and paid the men in question, indicting himin March with 16 counts of disorderly conductforallegedly filing a false report.
He pleaded not guilty to allegations that he lied to police, and all charges weresuddenly dropped at the end of March.
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“I’ve been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one,” hetold reportersoutside of a Chicago courthouse where the charges were dismissed. “I would not be my mother’s son if I was capable of doing what I was accused of.”
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Since then,he’s been let gofrom the hit Fox musical drama that made him a celebrity.
Last week,Smollett celebrated his 37th birthdayand said that he is “still smiling” in the wake of the scandal.
source: people.com
