Actress Taraji P. Henson is speaking out in support of former Empire co-star Jussie Smollett three days after he was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation for staging a hate crime against himself. Smollett, who claimed in 2019 that he’d been attacked by two men using racist and homophobic slurs, played her character Cookie’s son Jamal in the Fox series.
An Instagram post shared by Henson on Sunday features a black box with the hashtag #FreeJussie. In her caption, the Oscar-nominated star begged for leniency for Smollett, 39.
While Smollett has maintained his innocence — making a heated outburst in a Chicago courtroom on Thursday — Henson noted in her post that she was “not here to debate you on his innocence.” She does, however, feel that his punishment “does not fit the crime,” arguing that, unlike the false allegations that led to the brutal 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Black teen Emmett Till, Smollett’s “ordeal” was victim-less.
“I am not here to debate you on his innocence but we can agree that the punishment does not fit the crime,” Henson, 51, wrote. “Emmett Till was brutally beat and ultimately murdered because of a lie and none of the people involved with his demise spent one day in jail, even after Carolyn Bryant admitted that her claims were false. No one was hurt or killed during Jussie’s ordeal.”
She went on to suggest that house arrest and probation would be a more fitting punishment for her former onscreen son, who she says has “lost everything” and “can’t get a job.” Henson compared his Hollywood exile to “prison” for “an artist who loves to create.”
“He has already lost everything, EVERYTHING!” she continued. “To me as an artist not able to create that in itself is punishment enough. He can’t get a job. No one in Hollywood will hire him and again as an artist who loves to create, that is prison. My prayer is that he is freed and put on house arrest and probation because in this case that would seem fair. Please #FreeJussie.”
Henson’s post, which drew likes from Gabrielle Union and Leslie Jordan, echoes letters read during Smollett’s sentencing hearing last week, in which Alfre Woodard, Samuel L. Jackson and his wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson and others vouched for his character and urged Judge James B. Linn to not include a prison sentence.
The #FreeJussie post also follows reports from Smollett’s family that he has been placed in the psychiatric ward at Cook County Jail. At his hearing on Thursday, the actor was adamant that he was not “not suicidal.”
“So Jussie is currently in a psych ward at the Cook County Jail,” younger brother Jocqui Smollett said in an Instagram post on Saturday. “What’s very concerning is that there was a note attached to his paperwork today saying that he’s at risk of self-harm.
He continued, “I want to make it clear that he is in no way, shape or form at risk of self-harm. He wants to let folks know that he is very stable, he is very strong, he is very healthy and ready to take on the challenge that … has been put up against him.”
