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By Janice Williams
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Terrance Howard broke his silence on the controversy surrounding Jussie Smollett in the day's following the actor's arrest on felony charges. Howard, who stars on Fox's Empire alongside Smollett, supported his castmate by posting a video of Smollett with a smiling baby on his lap. The toddler, who breaks out into laughter when Smollett tickles him, is Howard's youngest son, Qirin Love.
"All your lil homies got you. We love the hell outta you man," Howard captioned the video, posted Saturday, along with heart emojis.
Not long after the video was shared with Howard's more than 801,000 followers, a fan disparaged the 49-year-old for openly supporting Smollett amid allegations of fraudulently reporting a hate crime. Howard shot back at the commenter and denied Smollett was capable of concocting such a crime.
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"Sorry you feel that way but that's the only Jussie I know. The Jussie I know could never even conceive of something so unconscious and ugly," Howard replied. "His innocence or judgment is not for any of us to decide. Stay in your lane and my land is empathy and love and compassion for someone I've called my son for five years. It's God's job to judge and it's ours to love and hope, especially for those that we claim to have loved."
All your lil homies got you... We love the hell outta you ♥ï¸.
A post shared by Terrence Dashon Howard (@theterrencehoward) on Feb 23, 2019 at 4:44pm PST
On Empire, Smollett plays the role of music superstar Jamal Lyon, the middle son of Howard's Lucious Lyon and Cookie Lyon, played by Taraji P. Henson.
As of yet, Henson has not made any public comments about Smollett, who surrendered to authorities on Thursday on a Class 4 felony charge for falsifying a police report. However, Howard did repost 20 Century Fox TV's statement on Twitter, which confirmed Smollett wouldn't be written off the show.
Smollett was back on the set of Empire after posting a $100,000 bail and turning his passport over to authorities on Thursday. Despite returning to film final episodes of Empire's Season 5, showrunners Less Daniels, Danny Strong, Sanaa Hamri, Brett Mahoney, Brian Grazer, Dennis Hammer and Francie Calfo announced the character Jamal would not be included in the final episodes of the season.
"The events of the past few weeks have been incredibly emotional for all of us," the statement, released Friday, said. "Jussie has been an important member of our Empire family for the past five years and we care about him deeply. While these allegations are very disturbing, we are placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays out. We are also aware of the effects of this process on the cast and crew members who work on our show and to avoid further disruption on set, we have decided to remove the role of 'Jamal' from the final two episodes of the season."
The statement sparked speculation of executives' desires to write Jamal off of the show for Season 6, but Fox denied any plans on firing the actor from the series.
Smollett, 36, claimed he was attacked by two men, who shouted homophobic and racist slurs at him, in Chicago on January 29. The Chicago Police Department identified two Nigerian brothers as the persons of interest in the attack, which was initially being investigated as a hate crime, in early February. However, after bringing the brothers in for questioning, the men were released without any charges while the department revealed plans to conduct a second interview with Smollett.
Sources within the department told CBS Chicago that the brothers were reportedly paid $3,500 by Smollett to help him orchestrate the attack. Smollett was indicted on felony charges for filing a false police report on Wednesday, leading the singer to turn himself in the following day.
If convicted, Smollett faces up to three years in prison, along with a fine up to $25,000.
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