Entertainment

Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 150 days in county jail on Thursday for fabricating a 2019 hate crime attack on himself.

Smollett was also ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago, fined $25,000 and must serve 30 months of felony probation.

As Cook County Judge James Linn was imposing a sentence, Smollett screamed out, “I am not suicidal. I am innocent.”

The judge ordered Smollett to be taken to jail immediately.

Smollett, 39, appeared Thursday afternoon in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago to hear his fate after a jury convicted him in December on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his allegations.

Prior to the sentencing, Linn denied Smollett’s motion for a new trial following a lengthy hearing.

“We’ve talked about this for two years,” Linn said. “I do believe that at the end of the day, Mr. Smollett received a fair trial.”

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As part of its coverage of Disney+’s upcoming series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Entertainment Weekly released an extended interview with Ewan McGregor, who portrays the titular hero. 

McGregor explained that he’d first returned to the Star Wars universe a couple of years ago, and after he’d agreed to the show, he was asked to do so-called “chemistry reads” with potential co-stars, which were held on the set of The Mandalorian. 

He was given “generic Jedi robes” to wear for the test shoot, but they had the desired effect. “I was walking out…and I was aware, suddenly of the crew…looking at me coming in [wearing] Obi-Wan’s costume, and I could feel that sort of excitement running through,” McGregor said, smiling. “It was exciting.”

McGregor said the best part was reuniting with his prequels co-star Hayden Christensen, who reprises his role as Kenobi’s fallen student and battle brother Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.

“It was sort of spine-tingling,” the Emmy-winning actor enthused. “It was just amazing to see Hayden, full stop. I’m so close with him. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, but we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And…once Hayden was on board…we met [during the lockdown] in Santa Monica in a park…and we had this long catch-up.”

McGregor noted, “I love him so much, and we have this special bond of making those two…films together…And to be with him on set again…it was just odd.”

Ewan added, “I look over at him…as Anakin…and it was…like the period of time between [the prequels] and now didn’t exist. It was so peculiar!”

Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts May 25 on Disney+. 

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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The social media age is famous for making mundane life moments the stuff of posts — nobody took pictures of their lunch back in the day, after all. But Amanda Bynes is apparently making up for lost time on her new Instagram account while apparently feeling out the finer points of posting.

A day after Tuesday’s first message, in which she rapid-fired an introduction and news she’s got a court date over terminating her conservatorship, Bynes posted throughout the day Wednesday. 

Among the things she detailed were evidence she’s removing the heart she’d had tattooed on her left cheek, and proof she just had her hair dyed, to eliminate the ombré tips she just had. In both cases, she stared at the camera wordlessly and blinked, adding only brief captions.

Another post was a shot of both her sneaker-clad feet, and according to the caption, those of the 35-year-old Easy A star’s 29-year-old fiancé, Paul Michael — the first person she followed on the ‘Gram.

Michael appeared in another video, via a TV monitor, recorded as he seemingly filmed an internal-use commercial for a medical facility. “BTS commercial for San Miguel Urgent Care,” Bynes chronicled.

Amanda changing her appearance to something more conservative could be an attempt to get ready for her March 22 day in court regarding her current condition, a key step to dissolving the conservatorship over her affairs. 

Bynes’ mother, Lynn, was put in charge of Amanda’s affairs following a 2013 incident in which Bynes reportedly started a small fire in a neighbor’s driveway, after which Bynes was placed on a temporary psychiatric hold. The conservatorship was reinstated in 2014, the same year the actress revealed she’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

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Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer celebrated the show’s 25th anniversary on Thursday with mixed feelings. Following director Joss Whedon‘s fall from grace and alarming allegations of misconduct made by former cast members and those who worked with him on other projects, it leaves fans worried that has permanently tainted the show’s legacy.

Star Sarah Michelle Gellar looked past the controversy to celebrate those who helped turned Buffy into a cult classic — the fans. 

“25 years ago today I had the honor to introduce the world to my version of Buffy Anne Summers. It was an uphill battle,” she wrote Thursday on Instagram. “A mid season replacement, on a new network based on a movie, that was by no means a giant success. But then there was you. The fans. You believed in us. You made this happen.” 

She continued, “You are the reason 25 years later we are still celebrating. So today we celebrate you as well,” and closed with the hashtag “#wwbd,” which means “What Would Buffy Do?”

ABC Audio caught up with Gellar ahead of the show’s silver anniversary, and the actress spoke about why a series about vampires and mad gods resonated so fiercely with fans.

“I think what makes any great entertainment is when a story transcends time and place, when everybody finds a little bit of themselves in the character. You know, whether you’re a guy, a girl, age, whatever, everyone understood that we used the demons as the manifestation of the horrors of adolescence,” said Gellar about why the show has survived the test of time. “No matter who you are, we all experience the horrors of adolescence. That is one of the commonalities among us.” 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 10, 1997, and ran for seven seasons, airing its final episode in 2003.

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AMC has released a trailer and a release date for the start of the last season of Better Call Saul: April 18.

The Emmy-winning Breaking Bad prequel series ended its penultimate season with Bob Odenkirk‘s Jimmy McGill getting increasingly tangled in the deadly dealings of the Salamanca drug cartel.

Set in part to Andy Williams‘ “The Days of Wine and Roses,” the trailer shows Jimmy and wife Kim Wexler, played by Rhea Seahorn, plotting to legally target their law partner, Patrick Fabian‘s Howard.

Meanwhile, Tony Dalton‘s Lalo is plotting to lethally target Jonathan Banks‘ Mike and Michael Mando‘s Nacho in revenge for their botched hit on Lalo, which killed his family.

“Whatever happens next, it’s not gonna go down the way you think it is,” Mike warns in voiceover.

The sixth season of Better Call Saul was supposed to debut last year, but was delayed both by the pandemic and by Odenkirk’s near-fatal heart attack on the show’s New Mexico set. 

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Elon Musk and Grimes have welcomed a new baby to their brood, via surrogate. And like her big brother, Grimes’ first child X Æ A-Xii, the new addition has an…interesting name: Exa Dark Sideræl [sigh-DEER-ee-al] Musk. 

For the record, they normally just refer to her as Y, Grimes says in a wife-ranging feature piece in Vanity Fair — and their son usually goes by X. 

The new baby’s name was born of a multitude of references, Grimes explains, with “Exa” as in exaflops, or the ability for a computer to perform a quintillion operations a second. “Dark” represents “the unknown…and also the absence of photons making up dark matter, “the beautiful mystery of our universe,” 

Sideræl, Grimes describes as “a more elven” spelling of “sidereal,” which Grimes calls, “the true time of the universe, star time, deep space time, not our relative earth time,” while also being a nod to the Elven queen Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings.  

The coupling between the avant-garde musician and the billionaire creator of Tesla Motors and SpaceX was widely reported to have been over, but as she tells the magazine, “I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we’re very fluid. We live in separate houses. We’re best friends. We see each other all the time…. We just have our own thing going on, and I don’t expect other people to understand it.”

Grimes says of their relationship, “This is the best it’s ever been,” and they plan to have “at least three or four” children together — so plan on some more interesting names in the future. 

That said, she tweeted today, “Me and E have broken up *again* since the writing of this article haha, but he’s my best friend and the love of my life.”

Elon Musk already has six other children from previous relationships — Nevada, Xavier, Damian, Griffin, Kai, and Saxon. 

We’re pretty sure he can afford the large family.

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Pete Davidson is teaming up with his SNL boss Lorne Michaels for a new sitcom about his life. Sort of.

Deadline reports the headline-grabbing funnyman will star in a show, tentatively titled Bupkis, which will center on a fictionalized version of his real life, a la Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

The trade reports the show is to be an “unapologetically unfiltered, R-rated” series that’s being pitched to streaming services, and “A-list talent” is being sought to co-star with the King of Staten Island star.

The show is being co-written by Davidson’s longtime friend and King of Staten Island co-writer Dave Sirus.

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The premise of the new pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death is so crazy, it just has to be true — and it is. The HBO Max series is based on the real life of Stede Bonnet, an 18th century wealthy English landowner turned pirate.

Show creator David Jenkins first learned about Bonnet from his wife and then ran to Wikipedia for more information. He tells ABC Audio that Bonnet “had a health crisis and left his family and became a pirate. And then, he very quickly got stabbed and then he met Blackbeard, the greatest pirate.”

“And then there’s wonderful holes in the narrative,” he adds. “Why did he leave his family? He says he was being nagged, but you’re like, dude, what did you do? How did you mess this up? I want to know. And then are you with Blackbeard? What’s up with that?”

While Jenkins couldn’t help but research about the Barbadian pirate, Rhys Darby, who plays Bonnet on the show, jokingly tells ABC Audio he didn’t do any research to play the role.

“You don’t have to do any. I mean, all these people are raving on about research. I mean, the audience aren’t doing research. They’re not ticking off a box. ‘Oh, he didn’t do that!’ And if they are, you know, shut up and just watch the entertainment,” he quips.

Even without doing research, Darby says that pirate life is often romanticized, but in practice doesn’t seem that great.

“There’s an element of everyone imagining what that might be like,” he explains. “Imagine being James Bond, having those mad skills. But you’d only ever want to do it for five minutes because, you know, it’s a horrendous life.” 

Our Flag Means Death is streaming now.

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Actor Jussie Smollett is scheduled to return to court in Chicago today to learn if a judge will order him to serve prison time after he was convicted for lying to police and staging an attack.

In January 2019, Smollett reported to police that he was the victim of a hate crime, alleging that two men yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him and tried to wrap a noose around his neck in Chicago.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the former Empire actor faces up to three years in prison for each of the five felony counts of disorderly conduct that he was convicted of last year. Part of the December trial included the testimony of two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who told jurors Smollett paid them $3,500 to carry out the attack, with a promise of an additional $500 later.

Because he doesn’t have an extensive criminal history and the conviction is for a low-level nonviolent crime, court observers do not think that Smollett will serve any prison time.

In February, Judge James Linn ruled that news cameras will be allowed in the courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building for sentencing.

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Move over Batman, it’s The Penguin’s time to shine.

HBO Max announced Tuesday that they’ve officially given a straight-to-series order to The Penguin, a limited series based on the Dark Knight’s nemesis.

According to the streamer, “The DC drama expands upon the world filmmaker Matt Reeves has created for Warner Bros. Pictures’ global blockbuster The Batman and centers on the character played by [Colin] Farrell in the film.” 

“The world that Matt Reeves created for The Batman is one that warrants a deeper gaze through the eyes of Oswald Cobblepot,” Farrell said. “I couldn’t be more excited about continuing this exploration of Oz as he rises through the darkened ranks to become The Penguin. Will be good to get him back on the streets of Gotham for a little madness and a little mayhem.”

Reeves adds, “Colin exploded off the screen as the Penguin in The Batman, and having the chance to thoroughly explore the inner life of that character on HBO Max is an absolute thrill. Dylan and I are so excited to work with Lauren in continuing Oz’s story as he grabs violently for power in Gotham.”

The news comes after the successful March 4 release of Reeves’ The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson. The film, which also stars Zoë Kravitz, grossed $258 million globally in its first weekend in theaters. 

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