Source: Rob Kim / Getty People are sending love and prayers to Jussie Smollett after he reportedly suffered a racist and homophobic attack at the hands of MAGA minions. Sources close to Jussie told TMZ that he arrived in Chicago from New York on late Monday. At around 2 a.m., he reportedly got hungry and left his place to go to a Subway. This is when someone yelled at him, “Aren’t you that fa**ot ‘Empire’ ni**er,” according to the source. The two men, who were both White and wearing ski masks, then proceeded to viciously attack Jussie as he tried to fight them off. Sources say they even put a noose around his neck, poured bleach on him and fled the scene as they yelled, “This is MAGA country.” Jussie was taken to Northwestern Memorial hospital for treatment, and he was discharged on Tuesday morning. An editor for HuffPost, Philip Lewis, tweeted out a statement released by the Chicago Police Department. “Detectives are currently working to gather video, identify potential witnesses and establish an investigative timeline,” the statement read. “The victim is fully cooperating with investigators and we ask anyone with information about this incident to contact Area Central Detectives at 312-747-8382 or report it anonymously to www.cpdtip.com.” According to ThatGrapeJuice.Net, Jussie was sent a threatening letter before his attack on Monday reading, “You will die black f**.” TMZ sources say the letter was delivered eight days ago. The envelope in which the letter was sent also seemed to say MAGA in the upper left corner. Smollett plays openly gay character Jamal Lyon on Empire, one of the few Black gay male characters on a hit T.V. show, especially when it premiered in 2015. Since the show’s success, Smollett has become more candid about his own sexuality. When he visited The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2015, he told Ellen that he never considered himself to be in the closet. “There’s never been a closet that I’ve been in,” he said. He added that his decision not to talk about his personal life was not an attempt to “hide or deny who God made me.” He continued “There is, without a doubt, no closet that I’ve ever been in, and I just wanted to make that clear.” In a 2016 interview with Out magazine, Jussie clarified, “If I had to label myself, I would label myself as a gay man. With that said, I believe that love is the only thing that matters, and I would hope that anybody would leave themselves open — not to gender, but to love.” Since the vile turn of events on Monday, Jussie has received nothing but love from fans, celebrities and friends like Empire co-creator Lee Daniels. Hit the next pages to find out what people had to say.
