Greater than six years after leaving Fox’s Empire amid an uproar over an allegedly staged assault, Jussie Smollett is returning to the community.
Smollett can be a part of the community’s competitors present Particular Forces: World’s Hardest Check within the fall. The actor and singer is one in all 18 celebrities taking over a sequence of challenges that mirror these of navy particular forces coaching.
The season’s different contestants are Kody Brown (TLC’s Sister Wives), Brittany Cartwright (Bravo’s The Valley), Randall Cobb (former NFL participant), Eric Decker (former NFL participant), Jessie James Decker (nation music artist), Andrew East (former NFL participant), Shawn Johnson East (gold medal-winning Olympic gymnast), Mark Estes (“web character”), Gia Giudice, Teresa Giudice (The Actual Housewives of New Jersey), Chanel Iman (mannequin), Brianna LaPaglia (“web character” aka Brianna Chickenfry), Johnny Manziel (former Heisman Trophy winner and NFL participant), Eva Marcille (mannequin and actress), Ravi V. Patel (Fox’s Animal Management), Christie Pearce Rampone (World Cup winner with the U.S. girls’s soccer crew) and Nick Younger (former NBA participant).
The solid additionally options just a few familial relationships: Eric and Jessie James Decker are married, as are Andrew East and Shawn Johnson East. Teresa and Gia Giudice are mom and daughter.
Smollett starred on Fox’s music-industry drama Empire for 5 seasons from 2015-19. In January 2019, he claimed he had been attacked in Chicago, the place Empire filmed, by two Black males who shouted homophobic slurs. The 2 males then mentioned Smollett paid them to stage the assault, and Smollett was charged with submitting a false police report; the fees had been later dropped after Smollett paid a positive and did neighborhood service. His character was written out of Empire’s ultimate season, although he remained below contract with the sequence.
In 2020, nevertheless, he was re-indicted by a particular prosecutor and convicted of 5 counts of felony disorderly conduct associated to submitting false reviews in 2021. He served six days in jail earlier than being launched; the Illinois Supreme Court docket overturned his conviction in 2024, ruling that the second set of costs violated Smollett’s due course of rights.
Smollett has maintained all through the case that he didn’t stage the crime. He just lately participated in a Netflix documentary titled The Reality About Jussie Smollett? that’s set to premiere Aug. 22 on the streamer.
Particular Forces will premiere Sept. 25 on Fox.
