Lee Daniels says Jussie Smollett will not return to Empire, but some insiders are less sure

In April, Fox renewed Empire for a sixth season, with the network specifically noting that there were no plans for Jussie Smollett to appear in the season—though it did extend his contract just in case those plans changed. It was hardly a surprising move, since the network had cut Smollett from the final few episodes of the show’s fifth season after police in Chicago accused him of staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself, but the move to keep the door open for a possible return was an obvious indication that Fox wanted to sit back and see how the allegations against him played out. Now, a couple months later, that situation is no clearer than it was in April, with the Chicago police having dropped all charged against Smollett and a judge recently ordering that several documents related to his arrest be unsealed and released, though “what really happened” is still open to interpretation.