It is a battle of the lawsuits now that this installment of Jussie Smollett’s case is over. The disgraced Empire actor has maintained for years that he was not involved in staging an attack on himself. The 2019 incident gained global attention after Smollett insisted that he was assaulted during a racist and homophobic attack in Chicago by two white men while on his way to Subway. Later, the Osundairo brothers claimed that Smollett hired them, and they testified that they knew him personally and were paid for their services.
The brothers have planned their defamation lawsuit against one of Smollett’s lawyers, Tina Glandian, because two months after the attack, she made a series of comments on the Today show. During the segment, she reportedly spoke about the actor telling the authorities that his assailants were white men and Glandian stated that the Osundairo brothers could have disguised their dark skin with makeup, or “whiteface.”
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Last week, a judge ruled that the brothers could move forward with their defamation lawsuit, and in return, another of Smollett’s lawyers is taking legal action against them. It seems that back in 2019, the Osundairo brothers sued attorney Mark Geragos after alleging that he defamed them while visiting the Reasonable Doubt podcast.
“They fabricated statements out of thin air and falsely attributed them to Mr. Geragos. In actuality, and as the transcript of the podcast reveals, Mr. Geragos never said anything remotely similar to what the complaint alleged,” the lawsuit stated, according to Rolling Stone. That case was dismissed. “Since the time the fraudulent lawsuit was filed, [Geragos and his firm] have wasted considerable time, effort, and resources to defend themselves, and to mitigate the damage to their reputation that flowed from defendants’ reckless and malicious actions.”
Geragos has also gone on to claim that the brothers have been milking their involvement in this case “for shameless self-promotion and monetary gain.” Court documents reportedly show that the Osundairo brothers launched an NFT collection that shows a restaurant that looks similar to Subway, except it’s named “Subday.” They also sold caps on their social media account that were much like Donald Trump’s “MAGA” hats, and this was a play on Smollett claiming that his attackers yelled the term at him.
“The entire NFT collection is intended as some sort of twisted parody of an event which the Osundairo brothers claimed to have ‘tremendous regret’ over,” reads documents.