In 2019, Empire actor Jussie Smollett accused US-based Nigerian boxer Abimbola Osundairo and his brother, Olabinjo Osundairo, of staging a racist, homophobic attack against him. Both the police and the Osundiaro brothers claimed it was a lie, asserting that Smollet staged the attack to promote his career.
Weeks after an Illinois court upheld his conviction, Abimbola sat with Chude and shared his side of the story: what the experience taught him about America, how his family responded, and why he feels he let down his morals and values.
See excerpts below:
Chude: On the day of this attack, how did you prepare? Was it just as random as the statement itself, or did you guys have to rehearse?
Abimbola: We were supposed to rehearse. We went to the place where the attack was supposed to happen. He showed us the exact location and said, “Hey, I want you guys to do it here.” The reason he said we should do it at that location was because he saw a camera. He thought the camera was facing us, so it would catch the attack. Lo and behold, the camera was not facing us, it was facing an entirely different direction. So, we did rehearse in that sense. My brother and I actually came up with the characters — white supers — because we were supposed to be white supremacists.
Chude: He asked you to be white supremacists?
Abimbola: Yeah, we were supposed to be that, and with the things we were saying, you could tell that we were white supremacists. He wanted us to say the N-word and the type of people that say that are usually white supremacists. So, my brother and I came up with characters. I called him ‘Bubba,’ but he didn’t give me a name, so we changed our accent to sound like white southern males. So I would sound like this, ‘Yeah, I’m about to go get that nigger right now; Yeah, get that boy’ – You know, shit like that. Yeah, so we did that, yeah.
Chude: Is it normal to have white supremacists in the city where you were?
Abimbola: No, absolutely not.
Head over to watch.withchude.com to watch the full interview. You can also listen to the full podcast on listen.withchude.com
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The post Abimbola Osundairo Speaks on the Incident with Jussie Smollett on #WithChude appeared first on BellaNaija - Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!.
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