Where is Jussie Smollett now?

Just as he was reaching the height of his career, eying a lucrative future and enjoying broad popularity, Jussie Smollett burned his future to the ground.

The 42-year-old actor had been on the scene for decades ahead of his abrupt fall, but he was experiencing a career high when he made the biggest mistake of his life. Apparently hoping to cash in on some unearned empathy, Smollett faked an attack, cried racism and homophobia, and promptly trashed any prospects he had.

The men who accosted Smollett outside his apartment complex were eventually exposed as acquaintances of the Empire actor, who he’d hired to stage an attack in an effort to stir up headlines. He certainly accomplished that, but not in the way he intended. Once the scheme was exposed, Smollett’s reputation was decimated — he didn’t appear in the final season of Empire, and he hasn’t appeared in any projects — save a documentary on the hoax and a self-directed film — since.

What is Jussie Smollett up to now?

It’s been more than four years since Smollett flushed his future down the drain, and he’s largely stepped back from public-facing life. In the years since the early 2019 incident occurred, Smollett’s spent most of his time grappling with legal pushback, but he’s determined to keep one foot in Hollywood.

That’s not going great for him, but Smollett’s making the effort nonetheless. His only project from the last four years — apart from a docuseries on his failed attempt at stirring up drama — was released in June of 2024, and breezed right past almost everyone.

That project, titled The Lost Holliday, followed Vivica A. Fox’s Cassandra Marshall, a woman who rushes to Los Angeles following news of her estranged son’s death. Upon arriving, she meets “her sons husband, Jason Holliday (Smollett), who she knows nothing about.” It’s a perfectly interesting premise, but the Smollett of it all doomed the film to perform poorly, earning it a 4.2/10 IMDb score.

In between attempting to regain the relevance he once boasted, Smollett is also working hard to combat the charges against him. Following several court cases, the former actor was slapped with five out of six counts of felony disorderly conduct regarding the false police reports he filed. He’s been dodging consequences in the case for several years now, thanks to several appeals, but in December of 2023, the courts once again upheld his conviction.

Despite the decision to uphold the conviction, Smollett is once again appealing. The Illinois Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal in late March of 2024, but no official court date has been granted. It’s a last-ditch effort from the one-time star, but one that is unlikely to succeed. Even if it does, it will never erase the stain on his reputation — but it could save Smollett from serving any more jail time.