Just days after the state charges were dropped against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett for filing a false police report after a vicious attack in Chicago, Ill., “Saturday Night Live” weighed in on the thesp.’s troubles.
Although Fox has stood behind their star, releasing a statement earlier this week that said “Jussie Smollett has always maintained his innocence and we are gratified that all charges against him have been dismissed,” the NBC late-night sketch comedy series had the team behind the show (played by Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, Kate McKinnon and Mikey Day) taking a difference stance: telling his manager (played by episode host Sandra Oh) that they no longer wanted to work with her client.
“Jussie Smollett was a victim,” Oh said, pleading to Thompson’s Lee Daniels that she had represented him during his entire career, and although he was two hours late to this meeting, she knew he had a valid reason. But her tune changed by the end of the sketch.
Chris Redd reprised his portrayal of Smollett in the sketch, bursting through the door in a “Make America Great Again” hat and saying he got attacked again.
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“Don’t worry, I got some hits in, too. I’m still the gay Tupac,” he said.
When Oh pointed out that “no one knows what that means” and no one was believing him now, Redd’s Smollett pulled out a “bag of clues,” saying he was only alive because he “fought back, because I’m the gay Mike Tyson.”
One of the items in his bag was a box of Crest Whitestrips. “Yo, do you think it’s racial?” Redd’s Smollett asked. Then he pulled out three red block letter Ks, a receipt (“I need that,” he said), car keys and “the gay” Teletubby. When told he should probably call the police, he said he was told he couldn’t do that again, as “it was part of the deal.” These actions left the executives in the sketch no choice but to tell him they had to fire him, to which he responded, “I made this show. I am the gay Lee Daniels!”
Earlier this evening, comedian Chris Rock roasted Smollett at the NAACP Awards, asking what the actor was thinking, which was echoed in the “SNL” sketch” when Day and Nwodim asked what was wrong with him, mentally, as well.
“I just hope he gets the help he needs,” Oh said.
Watch “SNL’s” “Network Meeting” sketch below:
“Saturday Night Live” airs live coast-to-coast Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET / 8:30 p.m. PT on NBC.