I Live In Chicago—This Is What The Jussie Smollett Netflix Documentary Gets Wrong

A close friend of mine lives in the very same building Smollett called home at the time of his infamous “attack.” I’ve been through that entrance countless times, stepped into that elevator, and strolled past the surrounding blocks.

That building isn’t some anonymous Chicago high-rise; it’s attached to a hotel and most of its residents are doctors from the prestigious hospitals nearby: Northwestern and the University of Chicago. The entrance Smollett used that night sits on a quiet dead-end street, the kind of tucked-away corner where you immediately notice anyone who doesn’t belong. Add to that the fact that this area is blanketed with security cameras. It’s also not far from where Oprah Winfrey used to live and from Michael Jordan’s restaurant, and just a few steps away from Chance the Rapper’s apartment. A 5-minute walk, to be precise. And let’s not forget, this was during the infamous Polar Vortex, when Chicago temperatures dropped to -20 degrees. So as the documentary rolled, showing Smollett’s dramatic retelling of his ordeal, one thought pressed hard against my mind: None of this ever made sense from the beginning.

And yet here we are, years later, with Netflix giving Jussie another chance to tell his story.

Netflix and the “Two Sides” Problem

If you’ve watched enough Netflix documentaries, you know their formula. They love to give every story “two sides.” It’s part of the streaming giant’s journalistic aesthetic. They keep it visually polished, morally ambiguous, always hedging its bets. Normally, this approach feels responsible. After all, who doesn’t want to hear every perspective before making a judgment?

But what happens when one of those sides has already been thoroughly debunked by evidence, witnesses, and the courts? What happens when offering “balance” isn’t a noble gesture but a distortion of reality?

Anyone familiar with downtown Chicago knew his story strained credibility from the start.

The Smollett documentary is a textbook example of the limits of this approach. It’s not unlike Netflix’s Unknown Number, a chilling series about a mother convicted of a horrific crime. In her interviews, she softens her guilt with rationalizations like, “We all do bad or illegal things every now and then.” The show dutifully lets her speak, framing it as just another perspective. But the effect is unsettling, even manipulative, because some acts aren’t just “one side of the story.” They are crimes, proven and punished. Giving them equal weight doesn’t illuminate the truth; it dilutes it.

Smollett’s case is no different. His narrative is not simply a personal interpretation of events; it’s a rejected claim, tried in court and found fraudulent. By giving him a platform to repeat his story, Netflix isn’t balancing truth with empathy; it’s putting a proven hoax on the same level as the legal system’s verdict.

The Illusion of the Hoax

When Smollett first alleged his attack in 2019, an assault supposedly carried out by men in MAGA hats who shouted racist and homophobic slurs, headlines exploded. It was the perfect storm of identity, politics, and celebrity. But it didn’t take long for cracks to appear.

The documentary itself highlights one of the most obvious cracks in his story (especially to the locals): the abundance of CCTV cameras in that part of Chicago. The city has one of the densest surveillance networks in America, and Smollett’s neighborhood is no exception. Yet, out of the countless hours of footage, not a single frame corroborated his version of events.

Uber records, too, told a different story. The alleged attackers—brothers with ties to Smollett—were traced and confronted. Their account, unlike his, lined up with the evidence. The police, the prosecutors, and ultimately the court system concluded what many Chicagoans already suspected: Jussie Smollett staged his own hate crime.

The Dangerous Precedent

Here’s where Netflix’s “both sides” obsession becomes truly dangerous. By presenting Smollett’s perspective as just another angle, the documentary undermines the justice system itself. Courts exist precisely to sift through competing stories, weigh evidence, and deliver verdicts. They are not infallible, but in this case, the outcome was clear: Smollett was found guilty of making false reports to police.

To give his story airtime without anchoring it firmly in that verdict is to suggest that the court’s decision is just one opinion among many. That is not balance, that is relativism. It allows the public to pick the truth of their choice, and in this case, the choice is based on PR and emotion. This places Smollett above the law, as though his celebrity status and access to PR professionals grants him the privilege of rewriting reality.

This places Smollett above the law, as though his celebrity status and access to PR professionals grants him the privilege of rewriting reality.

And it erodes public trust. If every court ruling can be dismissed as just another “side of the story,” what’s the point of having courts at all?

This isn’t to say that corruption and unfair court sentences don’t happen, because they do and those victims have a right to appeal and receive compensation. But it is offensive for Jussie to place himself in that category, when every witness testimony and piece of evidence places him as the perpetrator of his own misfortune. Remember that the only evidence in Jussie’s story is two neighbors who were not present. 

Race, Confusion, and Community Harm

Smollett has never stopped framing his story in racial terms. In the documentary, he leans into this angle, painting himself as a victim not just of an attack, but of systemic prejudice. But here’s the twist: the very people who investigated, prosecuted, and ultimately exposed him as guilty are themselves African American.

Chicago’s police leadership during his case included Black officers. The prosecutors who pursued him included Black lawyers. The community that watched the case unfold—neighbors, activists, even his own colleagues—was majority Black. By trying to re-cast his fraud as a racial injustice, Smollett isn’t lifting up his community; he’s sowing confusion and resentment within it.

Instead of advancing any meaningful cause, his narrative has done the opposite. It fueled skepticism toward real victims of hate crimes, chipped away at solidarity, and reinforced the perception that identity can be weaponized for personal gain. That’s not activism, that’s betrayal.

The Personal View from Chicago

Living in Chicago while this story unfolded was surreal. The city is no stranger to violence or racial tension, but the Smollett case was different. It was a staged drama in a city already weary of real tragedies. For those of us who knew the streets and buildings he described, the implausibility of his claims was obvious.

That dead-end street by his building’s entrance? You can’t move through it without being seen. The hotel lobby? Staffed, lit, and monitored. The neighborhood? Patrolled by cameras at every corner. Anyone familiar with downtown Chicago knew his story strained credibility from the start.

Watching Netflix gloss over these realities feels like déjà vu, like reliving the city’s collective eye-roll, except this time, millions of viewers worldwide are being invited to take him seriously again.

Why This Matters

Some readers might ask: why dwell on this case? Why not let it fade into the pile of media scandals and celebrity embarrassments?

Because truth matters. Because when powerful platforms like Netflix elevate lies under the guise of “balance,” it warps our cultural compass. And because in a time when trust in institutions is already fragile, dismissing court rulings for the sake of a dramatic narrative is a luxury we can’t afford.

Smollett’s hoax wasn’t victimless. It diverted police resources from real crimes. It cast suspicion on legitimate victims. It strained racial tensions in a city that doesn’t need more fuel for division. And now, through the sheen of Netflix’s production values, it risks rewriting history.

The Responsibility of Storytellers

The Smollett documentary reminds us that not every side of the story deserves equal weight. Some narratives collapse under the weight of evidence, and to keep presenting them as plausible “sides” of the truth is not fairness, it’s irresponsibility.

We’ve seen this pattern before. In Unknown Number, Netflix allowed a convicted mother to humanize her crime with casual relativism. In Smollett’s case, they’ve allowed a celebrity to undermine the verdict of a court. Both times, the result is the same: viewers are left in the fog of moral ambiguity, unsure whether they should believe their own eyes or the artfully edited “other side.”

But storytelling isn’t just about presenting perspectives. It’s about illuminating reality. A happy ending is not always about happiness itself, but about a resolution to the conflict. From the chaos, the truth eventually comes to light. 

Let’s not forget that the full title of this documentary is “The Truth About Jussie Smollett?" and yet the documentary doesn’t spell out what is the truth; instead, it lets you pick what to believe. 

As someone who’s walked those streets and sat in that lobby, I can tell you: Jussie Smollett’s story doesn’t add up. Not then, not now. And no amount of Netflix polish can change that.

In an age where truth is increasingly treated as subjective, it’s tempting to shrug and say, “Well, everyone has their version.” But justice doesn’t work that way. Neither should storytelling.

Netflix may believe it’s serving fairness by letting Smollett speak. In reality, it’s serving confusion and in doing so, it leaves us with a haunting question: if even the clearest hoaxes can be reframed as “just another perspective,” what hope do we have of defending the truth?