Pool/Reuters
An attorney for Empire star Jussie Smollett on Thursday offered a new theory for why the actor did not recognize his alleged attackers and initially described them as white: They may have disguised themselves in “whiteface.” Attorney Tina Glandian made the comments on the Today show when pressed to explain why Smollett did not recognize his alleged attackers, the Osundairo brothers, despite having known them for some time. “He only saw one of the attackers. One of them he didn’t see. He saw one through a ski mask,” Glandian said. “He did tell police that he—from what we saw, he thought it was pale skin or white or pale skin, was I think what he said... ,” she said. When asked how the Osundairo brothers, who are Nigerian, could have been mistaken as being white, Glandian said there were methods to mimic having a pale complexion. “I think there’s — obviously, you can disguise that. You can put makeup on. ... You know, I was looking up the brothers, and one of the first videos that showed up actually was one of the brothers in whiteface doing a joker monologue with white makeup on him. So, it’s not — it’s not implausible.”
Smollett was initially charged with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report about an attack police said was staged. The actor was accused of paying Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo $3,500 to physically attack him, pour bleach on him, and tie a rope around his neck while shouting racial slurs. The charges against him were dropped earlier this week, prompting outrage from Chicago police and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called it a “whitewash of justice.”