*Lee Daniels hit up “The Breakfast Club” this week to share his thoughts on Jussie Smollett’s hate crime hoax scandal.
“I can not judge. I can only have compassion,” said the “Empire” co-creator, later adding that that the creative heads are in talks behind the scenes about Smollett’s fate on the hit FOX series. As of now, Season 6 has not been confirmed.
“We’re in talks to figure out what we’re going to do with the show. It’s real. It’s traumatic. It has traumatized the show, it has traumatized the actors,” Daniels said. “It is very painful to talk about — even now. I think that we’re still living it. We’re still trying to figure it out. Regardless, I’m standing by him. Regardless of the outcome. I can’t discard someone…that’s like discarding my son.”
On whether or not he believes Smollett’s is truly innocent, Lee said, “I think that my thoughts are inconsequential. He’s my son. I can only say that I stand by him.”
Meanwhile, Jussie’s co-stars, including Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard, have come to his defense in a letter to the network and the show’s producers on Wednesday.
Henson and Howard have called for the singer/actor to be brought back to the show next season. Bryshere Y. Gray, Trai Byers, Gabourey Sidibe and Nicole Ari Parker also signed the letter.
“Together, as a united front, we stand with Jussie Smollett and ask that our co-star, brother and friend be brought back for our sixth season of ‘Empire,'” the group wrote.
“He is also innocent and no longer subject to legal uncertainty with the criminal charges against him having been dropped. We are confident in his lawyer’s assurance that the case was dismissed because it would not have prevailed.”
Read the letter in its entirety here.
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In related news, rapper Bun B shot an intruder at his home during an attempted robbery Tuesday evening, according to Houston’s ABC 13.
Bun reportedly opened fire as the intruder was trying to steal his wife’s car.
via TMZ:
Law enforcement sources tell TMZ around 5:45 last night, there was a knock at Bun B’s door … his wife, Queenie, opened it — thinking it was a possible delivery — to find a masked man holding a gun on the other side. The intruder demanded valuables, and
Queenie offered up her Audi in the garage.
Bun B heard the commotion from upstairs, grabbed his gun, and confronted the intruder as he was getting into the Audi. A shootout between the two ensued, and the intruder ran away … leaving his gun behind.
“Her fear was that this was someone trying to target her husband, so she gave him the car keys and all the possessions she had,” Bun B’s attorney Charles Adams told KHOU.
The intruder, Demonte Jackson, has since been arrested by Houston police. He reportedly checked himself into a local hospital to have his gunshot wound treated, MSN reports.
He was charged with two counts of aggravated robbery with a weapon and one count burglary.
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