Photo Credit: ABC News
Jussie Smollett did a pretaped interview with Robin Roberts for Good Morning America that aired this morning. During the interview he addressed those who doubted his attack saying that if the attackers were black or Muslim, he’d feel they would more likely believe him. He said he didn’t turn over his phone to the police because they were going to take it for hours and he wasn’t going to allow that. He said he had private photos, videos, numbers, his partner’s information in his phone, etc.
“I will never be the man that this did not happen to. I am forever changed,” Smollett told Robin Roberts. “And I don’t subscribe to the idea that everything happens for a reason, but I do subscribe to the idea that we have the right and the responsibility to make something meaningful out of the things that happen to us, good and bad.”
When Roberts asked what he was most upset about, he said, “It’s the attackers, but it’s also the attacks,” Smollet said, referring to what he called false reports and accusations, including that the incident stemmed from a date gone bad. “It’s not necessarily that you don’t believe that this is the truth. You don’t even want to see the truth.”
I have to acknowledge the lies, and the hate,” he went on saying. “And it feels like if I had said it was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me much more. A lot more. And that says a lot about the place that we are in our country right now.”
About if he’s lying, Jussie said, “that’s ridiculous.”
“I’ve heard that it was a date gone bad, which I also resent that narrative,” he said. “I’m not gonna go out and get a tuna sandwich and a salad to meet somebody. That’s ridiculous. And it’s offensive.”
And as for not wanting to turn his phone over to police. “They wanted me to give my phone to the tech for three to four hours. I’m sorry but — I’m not gonna do that. Because I have private pictures and videos and numbers: my partner’s number, my family’s number, my castmate’s number, my friends’ numbers, my private emails, my private songs, my private voice memos.”
“I don’t know what that’s gonna be, to hand over my phone for — and honestly, by then, inaccurate, false statements had already been put out there,” Jussie added.
Watch a clip from the interview below:
