The two brothers who were hired by actor Jussie Smollett to fake a hate crime against himself in 2019 have publically apologized to the country for the unintended “ramifications” that their actions had.
In 2019, Amibola and Olabinjo Osundairo, aka Bola and Ola, agreed to participate in Smollett’s hate crime hoax in which he attempted to portray Trump supporters as racist, homophobic, and violent.
Smollett set up a fake incident in which he claimed white Trump supporters – the two brothers – ran up to him in the street at night and shouted racial slurs at him and yelled “this is MAGA country,” then beat him, poured bleach on him, and wrapped a rope around his neck.
After causing nationwide outrage, the incident was debunked and proven to be a hoax.
Amibola and Olabinjo Osundairo, aka Bola and Ola, appeared on Fox News’s “Hannity” on Thursday, where they discussed their participation in the hate crime hoax and expressed regret for their involvement.
The brothers revealed that they agreed to go along with Smollett’s plan because they wanted to leverage their connection with the then-prominent actor to further their own personal careers.
Ola said, “I just first want to apologize to everyone in the audience, the country, and anyone who might have been affected by this directly. When we were asked to partake in this, we really didn’t foresee the ramifications of what something like this could do to the country.”
“We allowed our ambition to cloud our judgment,” he added.
In a Fox News segment, “Anatomy of a Hoax,” the Osundairo brothers walked around the scene of the crime and described how the night of the fake hate crime.
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Speaking about the moment she found out about the case, the Osundairo brothers’ attorney Gloria Rodriguez said, “My immediate thought wasn’t, ‘Oh my God, this is a national spotlight case.’ My immediate thought was, ‘Oh my God, I have two innocent guys here that are being accused of doing this horrific hate crime.'”
“My natural instinct really was to first, unlike a lot of the journalists that were out there reporting this, my instinct was to first get a handle on the facts,” Rodriguez explained. “And that same night that I met them, I went by myself, had to cancel my plans with my wife and say, ‘I’ve got to go down to the scene of the crime.’ And I looked around and I just remember thinking, it is dark, it is late out and there’s nobody out here. It’s super safe. It’s… this is ridiculous that this would happen.”
After Smollett’s claims were proven fraudulent, he was found guilty on five charges of disorderly conduct after a two-week trial in 2021 and sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months probation. However, he only served six days in jail before he was released pending his appeal.