Jussie’s $50K “Sorry Not Sorry” Move: What His MAGA Hoax Settlement Really Means for Fame, Fortune, and Future Scandals
Added on May 23, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards
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Isn’t it something how the universe loves a cosmic twist just when you think the stars have settled? As Mercury lingers in retrograde this May—a time notorious for stirring up unresolved drama and making old messes bubble back to the surface—Jussie Smollett quietly closes the book on a legal saga that’s been as dramatic as a soap opera marathon. The “Empire” star has agreed to drop $50,000 into the hands of a Chicago youth arts nonprofit to settle a grueling dispute over the city’s expenses investigating his 2019 staged hate crime claim. After years of back-and-forth courtroom fireworks, it seems the planets and parties alike wanted to call it a truce…and maybe invest in some creative energy instead. Who knew justice and art could dance so oddly together?
Jussie Smollett agreed to donate $50,000 to a Chicago-based youth arts organization to resolve a years-long legal dispute with the city over the cost of investigating his 2019 hate crime report.
The Empire actor reached a settlement with the city last month, and on Thursday (May 16), the Chicago Law Department confirmed the agreement had been finalized.
The city had initially sued Smollett in April 2019, seeking to recover more than $130,000 spent on a police investigation that concluded he staged the attack.
Jussie Smollett, 42, has consistently denied orchestrating the incident and responded with a countersuit accusing the city of malicious prosecution.
The legal back-and-forth stretched over several years before both sides opted to end the matter without further litigation.
“The City believes this settlement provides a fair, constructive, and conclusive resolution, allowing all the parties to close this six-year-old chapter and move forward,” a spokesperson for the Law Department said.
As part of the deal, Smollett’s payment will go to Building Brighter Futures Center for the Arts, a nonprofit that supports underserved youth in Chicago through creative programming.
The saga began in January 2019 when Jussie Smollett told police he was attacked near his downtown apartment by two men who used racist and homophobic slurs and shouted, “This is MAGA country.”
But weeks later, investigators accused him of staging the assault with his Nigerian trainers and charged him with filing a false report.
Those charges were initially dropped, but in 2020, he was indicted again and convicted of disorderly conduct in 2021. That conviction was overturned in 2023.
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