Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the charges against Jussie Smollett for allegedly staging a hate crime were dropped because he is famous.
“This looks like because he’s an actor, a person of influence, he got treated differently than anybody else,” Emanuel told “Good Morning America” Wednesday when asked if the state’s decision to drop the charges was “corrupt.”
FULL INTERVIEW: @ChicagosMayor speaks with our @GStephanopoulos about the investigation regarding “Empire” star Jussie Smollett. https://t.co/BHjpbroTWb pic.twitter.com/Th5RFLLLfx
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 27, 2019
On Tuesday, Illinois state prosecutors dropped all 16 charges brought against the “Empire” actor after he filed a police report in January alleging he was the victim of a hate crime. Smollett, who is black and gay, claimed two men beat him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs.
Chicago police said last month that there was substantial evidence to suggest that Smollett had staged the attack and paid two men to carry it out.
“You have the state’s attorney’s office saying he’s not exonerated, he actually did commit this hoax. He’s saying he’s innocent,” Emanuel told anchor George Stephanopoulos. “They better get their stories straight. This is actually making fools of all of us.”
Emanuel, angry and at times talking over the anchor, noted Smollett is “walking around with no guilt, no sense of remorse.”
[Related: Chicago cops fume over Jussie Smollett dragging city ‘through the mud’]
“He abused the city of Chicago, he actually committed a crime here, he lied about something,” Emanuel said, adding that he wants the investigation to go forward so “we can get to the bottom of it.”
Emanuel asked Stephanopoulos how he’d be treated if, as the Jewish mayor of a city with a large Jewish population, people learned he had painted a swastika on his porch to get sympathy.
“Do you think I would get away with two days at the Anti-Defamation League as my community service? Really? This is not on the level,” Emanuel said.
