
Netflix has announced that on August 22, it will bestow upon us a documentary titled The Truth About Jussie Smollett? — question mark very much included.
The question mark is doing a lot of work here. It’s not just punctuation. It’s a built-in alibi. The producers — who also brought us The Tinder Swindler — know that committing to a statement is how you get sued. This is not The Truth About Jussie Smollett. This is The Truth About Jussie Smollett? — the cinematic equivalent of saying, “I’m not saying she’s lying, I’m just saying I heard things.”
The Premise: “You Decide”
Netflix insists the question mark is there to let the viewer “decide for themselves who is telling the truth.” Because what better way to clarify a high-profile, years-long legal mess than to dump every contradictory interview, conflicting timeline, and exonerating/condemning anecdote into a blender and serve it as a true crime smoothie?
The documentary will feature Smollett himself, sitting across from the camera, finally given the chance to tell his story without interruption — except for the producers cutting to B-roll of grainy street footage, lawyers rolling their eyes, and retired detectives gesturing at maps like they’re auditioning for CSI: Chicago.
A Case With More Lives Than a Soap Opera
January 2019: Smollett reports being the victim of a hate crime. America responds with shock and sympathy. Celebrities tweet. Politicians issue statements. The plotline is clean: injustice, bigotry, and resilience.
Then, somewhere between February and the second cup of coffee, skepticism creeps in. The attackers are identified. They have gym selfies with Smollett. The receipts for the rope and bleach surface. Suddenly the story stops being clean and starts being an episode of Arrested Development.
Charges are filed. Charges are dropped. A new indictment appears. In December 2021, Smollett is convicted of making false police reports. In 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court overturns the conviction over prosecutorial issues, which means the court didn’t necessarily buy his story, but it also didn’t buy how the state sold theirs.
The result? We’ve spent five years with a Schrödinger’s Crime — both true and false, depending on which box you open.
Netflix’s Genius (or Grift)
Netflix knows that “closure” is the enemy of streaming hours. If the public actually reached consensus on what happened, you wouldn’t need six episodes with cliffhangers like, “But then, a new witness came forward…”
The documentary promises interviews with police, lawyers, officials, journalists, and “investigators who claim to have uncovered new evidence.” In other words, it will be a perfect storm of he said, she said, they said, court said, court unsaid. And all of it will be artfully scored and shot in that dark, moody palette Netflix uses when it wants you to feel like your TV might also be lying to you.
The Question Mark Economy
That question mark in the title isn’t just branding — it’s strategy. True crime documentaries have learned the safest way to exploit a scandal without being accused of bias is to slap a little punctuation-shaped shrug on the end.
It’s the same move tabloids make with headlines like Is Your Boss a Secret Cult Leader? or Could Avocados Be Killing You? You can’t sue for slander if there’s a question mark — you can only sue for typography.
Jussie’s Turn
Smollett’s current stance, per Variety, is that his story “has never” changed. Which is true in the sense that it’s always been the same story, just told into increasingly skeptical rooms. He now frames himself as the victim of a narrative war — not just a physical attack, but a reputational one.
And there’s a certain logic to that: once the public decides you’re a liar, every word you say sounds like further proof. Even a cough becomes suspicious.
The Audience Problem
The truth — with or without a question mark — is that America isn’t looking for resolution. Half the audience will watch this documentary waiting for the “gotcha” moment that confirms the hoax. The other half will wait for the “smoking gun” that proves the system railroaded him. Neither side will leave satisfied, because that’s not the Netflix business model.
The streaming giant isn’t in the truth business. It’s in the “watch the next episode” business.
The Tinder Swindler Blueprint
The producers’ previous hit, The Tinder Swindler, turned a sleazy dating app scam into a prestige binge. It didn’t change anyone’s mind about the scammer — it just made his story entertaining enough to post memes about.
Expect the same here: slick edits, ominous strings, slow zooms on text messages. The point isn’t to resolve doubt; it’s to keep you suspended in it. The only thing worse for Netflix than you hating Jussie Smollett is you deciding you have no further questions.
The Cultural Undertow
The Smollett case became a shorthand for whatever culture war you were already fighting. For the right, it was proof that liberals manufacture oppression for clout. For the left, it was either a tragic example of system bias or a frustrating distraction from real hate crimes. For the middle, it was just another reason to log off Twitter for a week.
Now, in 2025, the case has calcified into a Rorschach blot. The documentary will not change your mind — it will just give you new scenes to screenshot in arguments you were already having.
Why This Works Now
2025 is peak “decide for yourself” culture. The burden of fact-checking has been outsourced to the viewer, the reader, the voter. Documentaries no longer close with verdicts — they close with shrugging fade-outs and maybe a drone shot.
This isn’t journalism; it’s interactive theater. Netflix is just giving us the stage and asking us to play ourselves.
The Jussie Economy
There’s also the matter of Jussie himself. For someone who was supposedly “cancelled,” he has remained remarkably present — not in roles, but in headlines. The documentary offers him something no court can: a chance to play the role of himself, to control the lighting, the pacing, the pauses.
It’s not exoneration. It’s better. It’s narrative oxygen.
The Aftertaste
The truth about The Truth About Jussie Smollett? is that it will not be the truth. It will be a mirror — reflecting back whatever you brought into it.
Netflix will get its views. Smollett will get his platform. And we will get the same thing we’ve had since 2019: a story with two endings, neither of which anyone is willing to surrender.
The question mark will remain, floating there like an unclaimed balloon over a crime scene. Because the most profitable truth in America is the one you never quite confirm.