Netflix releases The Truth About Jussie Smollett? trailer

Netflix has released a trailer for The Truth About Jussie Smollett?, a new true-crime documentary that revisits the 2019 claim of a hate crime in Chicago and the subsequent legal turmoil that followed. The film, produced by RAW, features interviews with law enforcement officials, lawyers, journalists, and a sit-down with Jussie Smollett. It arrives as Smollett continues to insist on his innocence, and as a broader public conversation about the case remains unsettled. The documentary is due to premiere on Netflix on August 22.

The film traces a narrative that has become emblematic of a highly charged national moment, charting Smollett’s initial public story of a racially and homophobically targeted assault, the police department’s later assertion that the incident was staged, and the legal swing of the pendulum that followed. After Smollett was charged with filing a false police report, the case moved into a complex legal arc that included a settlement in a separate civil matter, a prison sentence that was later reduced to bail, and an attempt at appeal that culminated in an Illinois Supreme Court ruling overturning the conviction on a technicality. In the film and in public...