Actor Jussie Smollett‘s attorney suggested the Osundairo brothers, two Nigerian men who claim Smollett hired them to stage a hate crime, may have been wearing “whiteface” during the incident.
Attorney Tina Glandian, who appeared n NBC’s Today show this morning, pushed the theory after being asked about Smollett’s claim that he was attacked by a white man.
“He only saw one of the attackers. One of them he didn’t see. He saw one through a ski mask,” Glandian said. “Again, he could not see their body. Everything was covered, and he had a full ski mask on except the area around the eyes.”
“He did tell police that he — from what we saw, he thought it was pale skin or white or pale skin, was I think what he said,” she added. “And that was what he — and that’s why he initially did have a hard time.”
Glandian continued by suggesting Osundairo brothers had worn whiteface in the past — during a skit as The Joker from Batman in clown makeup — and may have done it again:
“Well, you know, I mean, I think there’s — obviously, you can disguise that. You can put makeup on. There is, interestingly enough, a video. You know, I think police had minimal investigation in this case, it took me only five minutes to Google. You know, I was looking up the brothers, and one of the videos that showed up actually was of the brothers in whiteface doing a joker monologue with white makeup on him. So, it’s not — it’s not implausible.”
While the two brothers were initially expected to testify against Smollett for allegedly paying them to stage the homophobic and racist attack, since the actor’s charges were dropped by a Cook County prosecutor, the two have since backed off and will not publicly refute Smollett’s claims of innocence.
Watch above, via NBC.
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