CHICAGO — Jussie Smollett testified Monday that he did drugs at a gay bathhouse and made out with one of the two brothers who accused him of staging a hate crime against himself.
The former “Empire” television star, 39, was called to testify in his own defense on day five of his criminal trial in Chicago criminal court and described meeting Abimbola Osundairo at a nightclub in the fall of 2017 and doing bumps of cocaine with him.
“We were in a club, you go to the bathroom, go to a stall, do a bump, do a bump and then just kind of keep going in and then we went to the bathhouse,” Smollet said.
While at the Steamworks bathouse in Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood, the pair went into a private room where there was gay pornography on the screens, Smollett said.
“We did more drugs and made out,” Smollet said, adding that there was “touching and things like that” but that the sexual encounter didn’t go further until their next trip to the bathouse.
During that encounter, Smollett testified they masturbated each other.
“We went alone this time. We got a private room again, we did drugs and made out a little bit and this time, we masturbated together,” he said.
Last week, Abimbola was called to testify as the prosecution’s star witness and said under oath that he was heterosexual and he and Smollett never had a sexual relationship together. He was also asked about whether or not they’d masturbated together at Steamworks and Abimbola denied it, but did acknowledge they’d gone to the spa together in the past.
Smollett testified that on the night of their second bathhouse visit, he met Osundairo’s older brother, Olabinjo, at a female strip club earlier in the evening. “[Abimbola] was whispering like, ‘lets make a break’ and we left,” Smollett recalled.
When asked about whether Olabinjo knew about the spa escapades, Smollet said, “The assumption was, of course he didn’t because we had to sneak out.”
The actor, who wore a dark blue suit, a light blue shirt and a burgundy tie, expressed embarrassment when asked whether he regretted his drug use on Monday.
“Of course, I’m sitting here in front of a jury, in front of my mom having to explain it,” he said.
Smollett appeared mostly calm and confident on the stand, only sometimes tripping over his words, as he testified about his rise to fame on “Empire” and drug-fueled partying.
He compared testifying at one point to being in the VIP section at clubs and said it felt like being a “monkey in a cage.”
“You’re just in a box with everybody looking at you,” he said.
Smollett also talked about his “middle class” childhood split between Los Angeles and New York. He was one of six siblings and got into acting as a child, appearing in commercials before jumping into films such as “The Mighty Ducks.”
When Smollett was 13, he and his siblings starred on the TV series “On Our Own,” which lasted one season, before his interest shifted to music.
Smollett is facing six felony counts of disorderly conduct for lying to police and if convicted, faces up to three years in jail.
Prosecutors allege the actor paid Abimbola and Olabinjo $3,500 to “fake beat him up” to get attention on the set of “Empire” while the defense claims the attack was real and carried out because the brothers are homophobic and wanted to avoid charges themselves.
Smollett’s testimony continued Monday afternoon and he is yet to be cross examined.
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