‘Empire’ Season 6: The Fate of Jussie Smollett’s Jamal Revealed

As the Lyons try to rebuild consumers’ faith in their label, they will be facing the music with one less Lyon cub in the mix. It’s now confirmed that Jussie Smollett’s Jamal Lyon will not be appearing in the sixth and final season of FOX’s Empire.

According to TheWrap, Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier confirmed during the Television Critics Association press tour what was lingering in our minds since Empire creator Lee Daniels teased that the actor won’t be around for season 6. “Lee is right… no plans for Jussie to return to ‘Empire,'” Collier said. He also added that the decision came from a careful deliberation with their partners at 20th Century Fox after “time and information and conversations with all the right people.”

“A lot of television depends on when the writers are back and we worked closely with the writers to make sure we did the right things and put the show back together,” said Collier.

Before this confirmation, Smollett’s fate in the show was tossed around between staying or going. At the time, Collier had the Empire staff figure out how Jamal could be written back to the show if things were shifting to Smollett’s favor. However, Daniels stated in June that there are no plans to have Smollett back for the show’s final season.

Smollett’s exit has been in the drawing board ever since the actor was charged by Chicago prosecutors with multiple counts of filing a false police report, referring to the January 2019 incident where Smollett was allegedly attacked in a racial and homophobic hate crime. The scandal prompted Empire’s writer’s room to cut down Smollett’s appearances in the latter episodes of Season 5—with Jamal and Kai’s (Toby Onwumere) wedding as his final scene in the show. Although the charges were later dropped, having Smollett back proved too much of a problematic matter at the time.

So, where will Jamal Lyon be in ‘Empire’ Season 6?

The final episodes of Empire season 5 addressed Jamal’s absence through a phone call made by Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) when Andre (Trai Byers) was hospitalized. In the conversation, Cookie revealed that Jamal is spending his honeymoon with Kai in Seychelles. It’s a vital period for the Lyon’s legacy label as the Trust Tour is struggling to keep their profits up, not to mention the FBI meddling with their affairs (thanks to a collaboration with Damian Cross) so they can nab Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard). Jamal’s absence could make or break Empire.

TheWrap caught up with Fox Entertainment’s Michael Thorn at the TCA and asked about how the show will explain Smollett being out of the picture. Thorn simply said that Jamal will be “on his honeymoon and working on some projects abroad… that’s how we hear about him at the beginning of the season.”

“I  think [showrunner] Brett [Mahoney] and the team have done a great job of creating a very realistic story for why he’s not in the day-to-day lives of the Lyon family,” Thorn explained. “We’re opening the premiere episode in the first couple minutes with something that we think is jaw-dropping and that we hope creates investment for the fans and buzz around the show and real engagement for the great creative work that’s been done over the past couple of seasons.”