Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Hoaxes Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 26, 2019 138 Comments
Cook County prosecutors have decided to drop disorderly charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett "for allegedly staging a phony attack and claiming he was the victim of a hate crime." More from TMZ:
Jussie and his lawyers ran to court Tuesday morning in Chicago, where he was facing 16 felony counts of lying to police in the alleged racial and homophobic attack.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 08, 2019 14 Comments
A grand jury in Cook Country has indicted Empire star Jussie Smollett on 16 felony counts for filing a false police report. Smollett had only received one felony charge for this last month. He claimed two white men in MAGA hats attacked him, yelling racist slurs.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 26, 2019 31 Comments
In Jackson, MI, transgender man Niki Joly became a gay hero in 2016 and 2017 after he managed to put on a gay festival and have ordinances dropped that discriminated against gay people. The local paper named him Citizen of the Year. But that was not enough attention for Joly because police finally arrested him for arson for burning his own house down in 2017. That fire killed his three cats and two dogs.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 22, 2019 71 Comments
The prosecutors in the case against Empire actor Jussie Smollett released their bond proffer, which provides evidence that he filed a false police report. The prosecutors wrote that Smollett instructed brothers Abimbola "Abel" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo to attack him, place a noose around his head, pour bleach on him, and also yell, "This is MAGA country!"

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 21, 2019 64 Comments
Empire actor Jussie Smollett turned himself into the Chicago Police Department early Thursday morning after the Cook County States Attorney charged him with a class 4 felony on Wednesday for filing a false police report. CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson said "Smollett paid $3,500 to stage the attack because he was dissatisfied with his salary." Smollett will appear in court at 1:30PM CT.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 17, 2019 29 Comments
The Jussie Smollett claim of a racial and homophobic attack in late January in Chicago by two white men wearing MAGA hats is falling apart. The story was suspicious from the start. While not impossible, it was improbable that two white guys were running around Chicago in the middle of the night during a sub-zero Polar Vortex wearing MAGA hats while carrying bleach and a noose and just happened to find a high-profile gay black actor to attack.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 16, 2019 69 Comments
The Jussie Smollett story of a racial attack was too politically convenient to be true. And as with investments, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We have covered several dozen hoaxes, including The Great Oberlin College Racism Hoax of 2013. The Jussie Smollett story had all the indications of a hoax, of seeming too politically convenient and useful to be true.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 19, 2018 41 Comments
Will corporations never learn that knee-jerk reactions to online outrage are almost always factually vapid? Apparently not. Fast food chain Chipotle recently fired a manager after a viral video showed her refusing service to a group of young, black men. She also suggested the group of men did not have money to pay for their food, saying the last several times they frequented the restaurant, they didn't have money to pay. "You gotta pay because you’ve never had money when you come in here. We're not gonna make food unless you guys actually have money," she said.
Accessibility by WAH