Jussie Smollett Incident Wasn’t Over Salary Issues, According To ‘Empire’ Executives

The Jussie Smollett saga continues.

According to TMZ, executives of Smollett’s hit show Empire do not believe that he staged the attack over his salary on the show. The Chicago police have reported that Smollett’s motivation to stage the January 29 attack against himself stemmed from his Empire salary. According to them, he wanted to raise his profile with the attack and get paid more per episode.

But Empire execs, including Lee Daniels, do not think that it adds up. According to an insider, Smollett never once went to show executives to gripe over his pay. The insider dishes that if Jussie was indeed upset about his salary, he kept it to himself and didn’t mention it to any of his co-stars or higher-ups.

The actor was reportedly raking in a cool $125,000 per episode which is the same as Bryshere Y. Gray, who plays Jussie’s brother on the Fox show. Lead actors Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard are earning double Smollett’s salary at $250,000 an episode but again, Jussie never let it be known if his salary was, in fact, bugging him.

The insider goes on to report that at the time of the “attack,” Jussie’s main focus was the new music that he was releasing. The actor was upset that his first album didn’t do as well as he had expected, which means that he felt a lot of pressure for this album to do better than the last.

Most recently, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson made an appearance on Good Morning America to give the Chicago Police Department’s version of the events that went down that evening. As The Inquisitr reported, Johnson sat down with GMA’s Robin Roberts where he re-told how the CPD was able to piece together the case that has captivated the nation.

“The entire time we investigated, [Smollett] was treated as a victim. We picked up the two individuals after we identified who they were…We took them in and were legally able to hold them for 48 hours…the 47th hour that we had those two in custody is when it changed.”

Johnson then told Roberts that the two suspects, who ended up being the Osundairo brothers, were told by their lawyers to tell the truth. Once they were questioned, it was uncovered that they were no longer suspects in the case, but rather witnesses. After that, Smollett’s story unraveled and it’s still believed by the Chicago Police Department that money was a motivation for the attack.

Johnson says that the police have more information that goes against Smollett’s version of the events of that evening and they will present it in court.