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      in Television

      One of Jussie Smollett’s Attackers Tells Court It Was All Staged

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      Abimbola Osundairo, testifying at Mr. Smollett’s trial on charges of filing a false police report, said “he wanted me to fake beat him up.”Jussie Smollett, frustrated by what he saw as a muted reaction to a death threat he had received in the mail, enlisted a friend in 2019 to stage a fake attack that would grab public attention, the friend testified on Wednesday at the actor’s trial.Abimbola Osundairo, the younger of the two brothers who have said they took part in what they describe as a hoax, said the strange request came after Mr. Smollett showed him an image of a threatening letter he had received. It featured a red stick figure hanging from a noose, a gun pointed at the figure, and the acronym MAGA on it.Mr. Smollett later arranged a meeting with him, Mr. Osundairo said, after sending him a text message in which Mr. Smollett said he needed help “on the low.” At the meeting they discussed how the television studio behind “Empire,” the show they both worked on, was not taking the letter seriously, Mr. Osundairo told the court.“He said he wanted me to beat him up,” Mr. Osundairo said. “I looked puzzled and then he explained he wanted me to fake beat him up.”Mr. Osundairo testified during the third day of Mr. Smollett’s trial on charges he filed a false police report about the attack, a case that largely relies on the accounts of Mr. Osundairo and his brother, Olabinjo Osundairo, who say Mr. Smollett devised the attack.Mr. Smollett has denied staging the Jan. 29 attack and his lawyers have suggested the brothers have fabricated the account to avoid prosecution.“He wanted me to tussle and throw him to the ground and give him a bruise while my brother Ola would pour bleach on him and put a rope around him and then we would run away,” Abimbola Osundairo testified.Mr. Osundairo, 28, said his friendship with the actor started in 2017 and grew to a place where Mr. Osundairo would refer to Mr. Smollett as his “big brother.” Mr. Osundairo said Mr. Smollett had helped him to secure a job as a stand-in for more prominent actors on “Empire,” a gesture that Mr. Osundairo said left him feeling “indebted” to Mr. Smollett. He said he ended up standing in for Mr. Smollett’s character’s love interest on the show.It is unclear whether the prosecutors will also seek testimony from Mr. Osundairo’s older brother, Olabinjo, 30, who also appeared on “Empire” and, though he was not as close to Mr. Smollett, has told investigators he was brought in to assist with the attack. Olabinjo Osundairo is on a list of potential witnesses.Jussie Smollett outside court Tuesday with supporters and family. His defense team has suggested that the Osundairo brothers made up an account of a fake attack while being questioned by the police. Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressThe brothers have told the police that on the day before the attack was supposed to take place, Mr. Smollett drove them around the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, where he lived, showing them where he wanted it to occur. The brothers say Mr. Smollett gave them a $100 bill to buy supplies for the attack, including ski masks, a rope and a red hat meant to indicate that the attackers were supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.The special prosecutor handling the case, Daniel K. Webb, said earlier in the trial that on Jan. 29, the brothers waited for Mr. Smollett near the proposed spot — in subzero temperatures — and when the actor arrived, they beat him lightly, put the rope around his neck and poured bleach on him from a hot sauce bottle.The defense has in its opening statement and cross-examination sought to undermine the brothers’ accounts. Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, called the brothers “self-confessed attackers” and said both men “did not like” Mr. Smollett.Mr. Uche said that a $3,500 check that Mr. Smollett made out to Abimbola Osundairo was for help with physical training for Mr. Smollett’s music video — not payment for helping with the attack as prosecutors contend. (Mr. Osundairo testified that at the time of reported attack he had been helping Mr. Smollett with diet and fitness plans to help him prepare for an upcoming music video, but that he intended to do the work for free because they were friends.)The defense has also said that Mr. Smollett’s text message asking for help “on the low” was in reference to getting herbal steroids from Nigeria, to which the brothers were soon traveling.On Tuesday, Mr. Uche suggested in his questioning of a detective, Michael Theis, who investigated Mr. Smollett’s hate crime report, that the police had not properly looked into accusations that Olabinjo Osundairo had a history of homophobia.Prosecutors sought on Wednesday to blunt that suggested motivation. Abimbola Osundairo was asked whether the fact that Mr. Smollett is gay had affected their friendship, and he said it had not. Mr. Osundairo said at one point that he had visited a gay bathhouse with Mr. Smollett in Chicago.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      in Theater

      A Playwright Has a Message: Anti-Asian Hate Isn’t New

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      Lionelle Hamanaka wrote “Covid Crime” to bring the conversation surrounding such attacks to her neighbors in Manhattan.On Sunday afternoon, a pigeon flew through a performance of “Covid Crime,” a one-act play taking place at a Manhattan intersection, where yellow taxis whizzed by against the backdrop of a halal food cart.The show, written by Lionelle Hamanaka and directed by Howard Pflanzer, was unfolding in Richard Tucker Park, a tiny cobblestone triangle on the Upper West Side. It was more of a reading than a staging — its seven actors sat in metal folding chairs, as did the audience of about 50 people.“I saw this TV coverage of a woman being assaulted on a bus with an umbrella. She was an older woman, an older Asian American,” Hamanaka said last week, before the play. “I thought it would be interesting to see how the community’s affected by it. Because we see the outside story, but we don’t necessarily see every case.”At the start of the pandemic, the coalition Stop AAPI Hate — AAPI stands for Asian American Pacific Islander — formed and began its own tally of such attacks. From March 19, 2020 to June 30, 2021, the group received 9,081 reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans across the United States. That number was not just a mere statistic to Hamanaka, who is Japanese American.“My parents were in the concentration camps, and of course that caused a great deal of hardship for our family,” she said, referring to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. “My grandparents both had businesses, and they had to sell them in one week. They had to pack up all their things and leave. And that leaves a scar in your mind.”The playwright Lionelle Hamanaka spoke to the crowd ahead of her show, “Covid Crime.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesSo Hamanaka, a playwright and onetime jazz singer who describes herself as a senior, funneled her frustration into art. She’s written a series of plays about Covid-19, including “Covid 10,366,” about the April 2020 spike in Covid-19 deaths, and “The Spitter,” about a supermarket dispute over mask wearing. But this is the first time she has addressed the recent rise in anti-Asian American hate crimes in her work.Hamanaka noticed that much of the organizing surrounding the #StopAsianHate movement in New York was taking place in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where about 33 percent of the population identified as Asian in 2019, according to the N.Y.U. Furman Center, which studies housing and urban policy.She wanted to bring the movement to her neighborhood, the Upper West Side, where about 10 percent of the population identified as Asian. “Then the people who are there have to look around and look at Asian Americans in a slightly different way,” Hamanaka said. “‘Like, ‘Have I excluded them? Do I treat them as a foreigner?’”“Covid Crime” was presented by Crossways Theater, a group formed in 2018 by Hamanaka and Pflanzer. It aims to develop playwrights that reflect the diversity of their neighborhood.“The idea is to bring the audience closer to these issues,” said Pflanzer, 77. “Get them to engage and participate in understanding and being aware of this very important issue of anti-Asian hate in our communities.”In the play, the character Dr. Leo Chan (John Bernos) arrives home from a shift at Bellevue Hospital. He lives with his mother, Chunhua (Hamanaka), who is asleep on the couch in the living room.“It’s just me, Ma,” Leo says. Chunhua grunts, and he notices a bandage on her head.“What’s that?” he asks. “What happened?”“Woman hit me with umbrella,” Chunhua says.“Where?” Leo asks.“On a bus,” Chunhua replies. “She say I bring Chinese virus to New York. Now everybody dying.”Bernos, a Filipino American actor from Ann Arbor, Mich., drove nine hours to New York for “Covid Crime.” After the performance, an audience member asked him about the hardest part of the role.About 50 people attended the performance, which was followed by a community forum.An Rong Xu for The New York Times“I’ve had my share of having a person tell me to go back to China,” Bernos said. “It wasn’t cool. So I think the hardest part is having to dig back into that memory and face that again. It’s always tough.”Though the play revolves around Chunhua’s assault, it also features Dylan Omori McCombs as Corky Lee, the only character in the play based explicitly on a real person. Lee was a Chinese American photographer, journalist and activist from Queens. 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My photos are proof that we exist — that we do a lot of things.”The performance was followed by a community forum. Shirley Ng, a community organizer at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Jacqueline Wang, the head of marketing and communications at Welcome to Chinatown, both spoke to the small crowd.“Just like the play, many seniors will come home and not know what to do,” Ng said. “They could’ve gone to the police precinct or called 911, but there’s always this fear that they may get turned away, because they don’t have someone who speaks their language, or there’s just this fear of stepping in and not knowing — what is the process?”“Covid Crime” was presented by Crossways Theater, which aims to develop playwrights that reflect the diversity of the Upper West Side.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesThe fund, a 47-year-old national organization based in New York, works to protect and promote the civil rights of Asian Americans — including encouraging seniors to report any hate crimes that may occur. Welcome to Chinatown, founded last year, is a grass roots initiative that supports Chinatown’s businesses and amplifies its voices.“Another thing covered by this play is that, when you don’t know someone — you don’t look like them, you don’t speak their language, you don’t know their culture, you don’t eat the same things — it’s really easy to just label them as ‘other,’” Wang said. “That’s something not new to the pandemic, but something that was exacerbated and highlighted.”In the last act of “Covid Crime,” Dr. Leo Chan speaks a common Chinese phrase. “We have a saying, ‘Swallow bitterness.’ Leave that behind. Won’t work these days!” More

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      in Music

      Evan Rachel Wood Accuses Marilyn Manson of Abuse

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEvan Rachel Wood Accuses Marilyn Manson of Abuse“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” Ms. Wood, said on Instagram. Hours later Mr. Manson’s label dropped him.The rock musician Marilyn Manson last year. Mr. Manson and the actress Evan Rachel Wood publicly became a couple in 2007, when she was 19 and he was 38.Credit…Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for The Art of ElysiumJenny Gross and Feb. 1, 2021Updated 6:09 p.m. ETThe actor and singer Evan Rachel Wood, who has spoken publicly for years about being a survivor of sexual and physical violence, said on Monday that she had been abused by the rock musician Marilyn Manson.“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Ms. Wood wrote in an Instagram post. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”Ms. Wood, 33, was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2017 for her role in “Westworld” and voiced Queen Iduna in “Frozen 2.” She began acting as a child, receiving her first Golden Globe nomination early in her career for her portrayal of a volatile adolescent in the 2003 drama “Thirteen.”Her relationship with Mr. Manson became public in 2007, when she was 19 and he was 38. The two were briefly engaged.Representatives for Mr. Manson did not respond to several requests for comment on Monday. Last year, Mr. Manson’s representatives issued a statement to Metal Hammer, a music magazine, in response to questions about his relationship with Ms. Wood and her testimony before Congress about being a victim of domestic violence.“Personal testimony is just that, and we think it’s inappropriate to comment on that,” Mr. Manson’s representatives told Metal Hammer. “You then go on to talk about Manson being accused of ‘terrible things’ by unnamed ‘critics’ but offer no guidance on who these critics are and what these things are, so it’s not possible to comment.”Evan Rachel Wood at her home in Los Angeles last year.Credit…Rozette Rago for The New York TimesSeveral other women have also accused Mr. Manson of having abused them. In 2018, the actress Charlyne Yi accused Mr. Manson of harassment in a series of tweets that have since been deleted. In September 2020, Dan Cleary, who said that he had worked as an assistant to Mr. Manson for several years, wrote on Twitter that he had witnessed the singer being abusive.Loma Vista, the label that released Marilyn Manson’s latest recording, said Monday it would stop promoting it and would not work with him in the future.“In light of today’s disturbing allegations by Evan Rachel Wood and other women naming Marilyn Manson as their abuser, Loma Vista will cease to further promote his current album, effective immediately,” it said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Due to these concerning developments, we have also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects.”Ms. Wood, who supported a California law that extended the statute of limitations on domestic abuse, testified before the State Senate in 2019 that a man whom she did not identify by name had groomed her when she was 18.“He cut me off from my close friends and family one by one, by exhibiting rage in some form or another when I was in contact with them,” she said in her testimony. “He had bouts of extreme jealousy, which would often result in him wrecking our home, cornering me in a room and threatening me.”She said that she felt terrified for her life, and that he broke her down through starvation and sleep deprivation, and by threatening to kill her. In one instance, he forced her to kneel in their bedroom, tied up her hands and feet, beat her and shocked sensitive parts of her body with a device called a violet wand.When she tried to leave him, he would call her house incessantly, she said.Mr. Manson told Spin magazine in 2009 that he had called Ms. Wood 158 times one day after a breakup. “I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer,” he said.His representatives said last year, in response to questions by Metal Hammer, that Mr. Manson’s comment in Spin was “obviously a theatrical rock star interview promoting a new record.”Mr. Manson described his views on women in a 2015 interview with Dazed, a style magazine.“Girls should always present themselves to you when you come home,” he said. “‘Hi honey, I’m home,’ and she’s wearing lingerie, legs akimbo. ‘Come and get it, honey.’”Ms. Wood told Rolling Stone magazine in 2016 that she had been raped: “By a significant other while we were together. And on a separate occasion, by the owner of a bar.”In recent years, especially after the birth of her son in 2013 and the start of the #MeToo movement, she was galvanized to become an advocate for survivors of domestic abuse, she told The New York Times in a 2018 interview. “If you’re going to be famous, for me it has to mean something, or be used for something, because otherwise it just freaks me out,” she said in the interview.That February, she testified before Congress about what she had endured.“So often we speak of these assaults as no more than a few minutes of awfulness, but the scars last a lifetime,” she said in her testimony, in which she detailed an episode in which she thought she might die at the hands of her abuser. “Not just because my abuser said to me, ‘I could kill you right now.’ But because in that moment, I felt like I left my body. I was too afraid to run, he would find me.”For years afterward, she said, she “struggled with depression, addiction, agoraphobia, night terrors,” and made two suicide attempts; she said she was eventually diagnosed with long-term post-traumatic stress disorder.Before her Congressional hearing about the Survivor’s Bill of Rights, which expanded access to medical care and more for survivors of sexual assault, Ms. Wood said she had hardly uttered the full scope of her trauma to anyone. She had barely processed it herself, she said in the 2018 interview, until she was cast in “Westworld,” the sci-fi drama in which she plays an innocent who slowly awakens to the darkness around her.Ms. Wood has said that she did not report her abuser to authorities because the statute of limitations had long since passed, and that she chose not to name him because she felt she had to come to terms with her own story first. “It took me so long to process everything and to get to a place where I felt even safe enough to speak about the abuse. And it’s scary,” she said in Harper’s Bazaar in 2019.Giving survivors more time was part of her motivation in working on the Phoenix Act, the California bill for which she testified. It passed in 2019, and took effect last year. It lengthens the statute of limitations for domestic abuse felonies to five years, and expands training for officers working on domestic violence cases.In response to Ms. Wood’s allegations on Monday, Susan Rubio, the California state senator who proposed the legislation, and who is herself a survivor of domestic abuse, called for Mr. Manson to be investigated.She said Ms. Wood had been “instrumental” in getting California’s laws changed. “When survivors speak up, they help victims realize they are not alone and empower them to come out of the shadows,” she said. “The more stories we share, the less power we give our abusers.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More