Jussie Smollett returned to the spotlight Sunday at the BET Awards in Los Angeles.
The former star of the Empire climbed the red carpet in a brown dress combined with a white shirt, several gold necklaces and black earrings.
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After posing for photos in the 90-degree heat outside Microsoft’s theater, Smollett stopped to talk to Entertainment Tonight and told ET host Kevin Frazier that it’s “wonderful” to return to Hollywood.
Smollett’s directorial debut, B-Boy Blues, premiered on June 9 on BET +. The drama is an adaptation of James Earl Hardy’s best-selling novel of the same name and follows the same-sex love story between a journalist with a college degree in Brooklyn and a bicycle messenger from Harlem.
The actor has been slowly returning to public life since he was released from the Cook County Jail in Chicago on March 16, pending the appeal of his conviction for lying to police about an alleged hate crime attack, in which he said he was beaten and splashed. with bleach from two men who shouted racial and homophobic insults and said, “This is the MAGA country.”
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In his first interview since he was convicted of disorderly conduct in December 2021, the 40-year-old star sat on SiriusXM’s “Sway in the Morning” program on June 21st.
During the interview, Smollett insisted he did not star in the 2019 attack and also confirmed that he spent time in a psychiatric ward while in prison.
“I was there for six and a half days. I fasted for six and a half days, “he said, adding that fasting helped clear his mind.” Never in my life, at least in my adult life, have I had such a clear mind as during those six. days and a half … I was fasting until I knew if I would go there or not during those five days. months and a half. I just wanted to know what my life would be like. “
He clarified that he was not confined to a straitjacket or subject to restrictions.
“The Lord knows he wanted to go out. He was in a psychiatric ward … He was sleeping in a restraint bed, but he wasn’t subject,” he said.