Jussie Smollett: 'If I were to do something, it would not be to look like a victim'

Actor Jussie Smollett recently sat down with SiriusXM’s Sway Calloway on SiriusXM’s Sway in the Morning.

Jussie served only a few days in prison after he was convicted of staging a 2019 hate crime against himself earlier this year. Although he maintains his innocence, the former "Empire" actor says he understands why people don't believe him.

Jussie said, "I don't, there's a part of me that, you know, when I strip my, when I strip my ego, when I strip my personal emotions about it and my personal situation, I'm, the way that it was served to everybody I absolutely understand why people felt betrayed."

In April, Jussie released a song called "Thank You God," where he proclaims his innocence.

Jussie said, "I put that in my song ... where I was just like, I really overstand the reason why y'all felt betrayed."

The fledgling filmmaker also stated that he "didn't know what was happening then. I didn't know how I, I didn't know how bad it was getting."

Instead, Jussie felt that from his "past history" of advocacy, he would have more supporters in his corner.

He said, "It's very interesting when someone uses, when someone lies on you over and over, and then they pull and you know what is the lie, but then you're forced to acknowledge the truths around the matter as well and that's really painful as well."

Jussie felt that prosecutors dragged irrelevant information, like his drug use, into the trial, adding, "You're sitting there and you're like, but this doesn't have anything to do with what y'all are saying that I did do that I didn't do. So it, it is what it is."

Although he said that he wished people had picked up the phone and called him to get his side of the story, he said, "I also understand that we sometimes operate off of fear and that when you are, when you're kind of, you know, the whole mission is to alienate you so that everybody so that you are such, you are so just like vibrating in the wrong way."

After the alleged hate crime, Jussie sat down with Robin Roberts for an interview that was later played at the trial, as Jussie was found to have contradicted several elements of his testimony with what he said in the video.

Jussie Smollett flat out admitted, "I didn't wanna do an interview. ... And I don't wanna get too deep, you know, because I love and respect Robin Roberts, you know what I'm saying? But I did not want to do that interview."

"That interview wasn't for me, that was for my character," he added.

Jussie admitted that he actually hadn't watched the interview at all until it was played for him at the trial. He said, "I hadn't watched the interview at all. I hadn't watched the interview at all until we were on trial and I had to watch it because they were trying to use the interview as evidence of lies or whatever."

"So, I had to watch it and I watched it and I was mortified," he continued. "I mean, I was mortified. I mean, I cringed at just the, every single word that I said in that interview was the truth, but there was a certain level of performative nature that came from it because I didn't want to be there."

Jussie described himself as "so angry and so offended" that he "had to go on national television" and explain what happened to him.

Jussie said the trial forced him to start "dealing with my own internalized homophobia," adding, "As an openly gay black man who leads with his blackness, I found myself dealing with that. And I'm embarrassed."

He said that he wanted to represent victims of assault, adding, "For the people that didn't have the platform that I had, I wanted to say all of the things that people should hear from people who have been through this."

"But I also didn't wanna be associated with people who had been attacked," he explained. "I felt like somehow, like I want to, I want to play roles. I wanna play boxer. I wanna play, you know, superheroes and all that type of s---."

"And so, I was trying so hard to like the posturing of, he hit me and then I hit his ass back and I was just like, ‘oh my God, what are you doing? You look ridiculous.’ But everything that I said was the God, to honest, honest to God truth," he added. "But it's just the way that it was."

"Do I feel like I'm, I'm better than anyone else that has been assaulted?" Jussie asked. "Absolutely not, so completely not, but at that time I was just so embarrassed that it happened."

Jussie also maintained that if he had made up the story of his attack, he would have described it differently.

"So that's why, when people were just like, ‘oh, he, he did this so that he could, he did this so that he could get attention.’ I'm just like, ‘first of all, I've never been a person that looked for attention. But if I was like, I'm an actor, a director, a writer….’ You know what I'm saying?"

"If I were to do something, it would not be to look like a victim," he said. "It would be to look like, if anything someone's strong. And I found myself being like, ‘yo, but I'm strong, but I fought back’ and all of that type of stuff."

"And so we just didn't know what to expect. We didn't know what was coming," he added. "We didn't know who was gonna lie. We didn't, there was just nothing to point us to that until it happened. And we were just dumbfounded and looking back, there were so many things that we could have done to intercept it, but we just didn't know what was coming. So that's that."