Amanda Seales left fans upset after she expressed her views on Jussie Smollett‘s false police report case on the Feb. 12 episode of “The Real.”
While fans have mixed opinions about what really went down during the supposed attack, the comedian and talk show host stirred up controversy with her opinion, on the recent episode of “The Real.”
Seales told her co-hosts, “Even if it was a hoax, this is really happening all the time. And even if it was a hoax for the sake of bringing attention to this, then I’m like, that’s low-key noble.”
“I’m at my wit’s end about us centering situations like this and wanting to make people have to pay,” she continued. “And it’s like Emmett Till’s accuser was a lot. I think she’s still alive and this young man died and she announced that she was lying about it. Thye should have put the shackles on her that day and she’s walking around; so no one was hurt in this situation. Nobody. You know what they’re mad about? Their time. Their resources being used … Taxpayers resources are being used every day to imprison people who have done nothing but be an addict, so I don’t want to hear about Jussie Smollett.”
Fans took to YouTube to explain how they really felt about Seales’ comments.
One user said, “Jussie wasn’t being noble. He was being manipulative. Sisters don’t be like Amanda and Loni. Sit this one out. Jussie created this mess; leave him to deal with it.”
“NOBLE?????!?!?!?!?!!! Has Amanda lost her mind ? That was straight Clownery,” a third stated.
Another commented, “I would not call faking a hate crime, noble. I do understand where Amanda is coming from but there’s just a lot to it.”
“Amanda is being really biased here, I’m black but I feel like Jussie should be punished for allegedly faking the attack. This is wrong on every possible level,” a fourth said.
Seales went further in comparing his case to that of a lynching victim of the Jim Crow era, 14-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago, who was lynched in Greenwood, Mississippi, by white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
Till’s accuser admitted years later she lied about Till. In 2017, Till’s family requested the Justice Department revisit the evidence in light of the revelation.
On Jan. 30, 2019, the former “Empire” cast member called 911 claiming two white men attacked him while shouting racial and homophobic slurs as he was leaving a Subway restaurant in Chicago sometime near 2 a.m. In Smollett’s police statement, the 37-year-old actor told officers the men struck him in the face and poured a chemical substance — which he believed to be bleach — on him before one of them wrapped a noose around his neck, a noose he was still wearing when police arrived to take his report. The Chicago Police Department opened a hate crime investigation after the incident.
In Smollett’s case, police later determined that he was lying about the incident and staged his own attack. Police accused the actor of hiring two brothers, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, to attack him because he was unhappy with the way things were going on the hit television show “Empire.” Authorities said that during the investigation they uncovered video footage of both of the brothers buying a red hat and ski mask a day before the late-night incident was reported.
Despite the claims made by the Chicago Police Department, Smollett still states he is innocent and did not lie about being assaulted. Last March, a grand jury charged him with a 16-count indictment in connection with filing the report. The charges were eventually dropped, but a grand jury indicted Smollett with six new felony counts of disorderly conduct this past Tuesday, stemming from four separate false reports to the Chicago Police Department, as reported by the Associated Press.
Smollett is due back in court Feb. 24.
