Actor jussie smollett appears outside of court after it was announced that all charges have been dropped against him 2
Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images
Source: Associated Press
The footage was taken at Smollett's apartment following the alleged attack against him.
Hundreds of videos and countless documents from the investigation of an alleged attack against Jussie Smollett has been released by Chicago police. Included in that is a previously unseen video of Smollett still wearing the rope that he claimed two men attacked him with following the altercation.
The footage, which was released Monday and recorded by police, shows Smollett speaking with police at his residence after the attack in January. Smollett's face is blurred but the rope around his neck is visible as the officers talk to him.
The officers proceed to ask the actor and singer if he wants to take the rope off.
"Yeah," Smollett says. "I do. I just wanted y'all to see it."
Elsewhere in the footage, Smollett describes the perpetrators of the attack, saying that they're "probably Caucasian" because of the comments they made against him (Smollett initially claimed his attackers yelled "Make America Great Again" and made homophobic comments). He also tells them that the men poured a chemical substance on him.
"There's bleach on me," Smollett says. "They poured bleach on me."
The officers stopped recording Smollett after they informed him they were filming him, to which the actor responds, "I don't want to be filmed."
Smollett's alleged attack is now believed to have been a hoax orchestrated by the actor himself. He was previously indicted on 16 counts of filing a false police report but the charges were dropped in March. A special prosecutor is now investigating why all the charges were dropped. Still, the option to file new charges against Smollett is a possibility. The city of Chicago is also trying to go through civil court to sue the actor in hopes of recouping the $130,000 overtime cost that the investigation allegedly cost.
