Jake, Jazz, Jussie, Jurnee, Jocqui and Jojo — some are stuck in scandal, some are rising
stars, and all of them are pretty good cooks.
Here's everything you need to know about the Smollett family.
"We have arrived!"
The Smollett siblings are the children of Joel Smollett Sr., a Russian-Polish Jew, and
Janet Smollett, an African American from New Orleans.
The couple moved around a lot when the kids were young, alternating between the East and
West coast.
According to a 2020 interview by Essence with Jazz and Jake, they relocated between states
as many as 13 times.
The siblings revealed that their parents had very little in those days, so they got creative.
When the nomadic family stayed settled long enough, Janet Smollett made a brand-new kitchen
table big enough for them all to eat at.
Recalling the DIY project, Jazz Smollett told Essence,
"[She] literally built it with her own hands.
She went to the lumber yard, got the wood, [...] it was all her creation and her brainchild.
They didn't have much money at all when they started out so they built all of their furniture,
actually."
Jazz, who was speaking to the mag to promote the cookbook she and her siblings released
together, went on to reveal that their mom built all of their beds and the family couch,
too.
Janet Smollett and her late husband Joel Smollett Sr. were activists that rubbed shoulders with
everyone from the co-founders of the Black Panther Party to the most prominent civil
rights leaders of their day.
In a 2016 interview, Jussie Smollett told The New York Times,
"My mom was in the movement with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, and one of her first mentors
was Julian Bond.
To this day, Angela Davis is one of her dearest friends.
We've spent Mother's Day with Angela."
The company that the Smolletts liked to keep clearly rubbed off on their children because
they've been protesting pretty much their whole lives.
According to Jurnee, she was five years old when she joined her mom at her first protest
— she was out in the street holding a sign when the Los Angeles cops who beat Rodney
King were acquitted on assault charges.
She told The Hollywood Reporter that she was even allowed to see the film "Malcolm X" when
it was still in theaters.
As she put it,
"My mom would cover our eyes in certain parts, but she didn't want to shield us from our
history."
More recently, the Smollett siblings have lent their support to the Black Lives Matter
movement by attending marches and protests.
Actor Alfre Woodard, who worked with the siblings at the nonprofit Artists for a New South Africa,
told the New York Times,
"Their sense of justice is very strong, and it permeates everything that they do."
"This movement really is living at the intersection of all people."
Jurnee Smollett wasn't even a year old when she landed her first acting gig.
She had only been in the world for 10 months when she popped up in a diaper commercial,
becoming the first Smollett to appear on camera.
Even then, it was clear that Jurnee was destined for big things.
Her big break came when, aged four, she won a recurring role on ABC's "Full House" playing
the bestie of Michelle Tanner.
The character was written for a white girl, but Jurnee's mother, Janet Smollett, insisted
that she audition anyway.
The rest is history, and it's a history that Jurnee is proud to be part of.
As she later said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter,
"There's a generation of young girls, women of color, who have repeatedly expressed to
me [that they] didn't see many young brown girls, young Black girls on TV during that
time.
Growing up with an image of a girl whose hair was curly, you know, it had an impact on them.
I'm appreciative of and grateful for that."
Jurnee Smollett's run on "Full House" went down so well with producers that ABC decided
to offer her a spin-off show.
According to Jurnee, when the network approached Janet Smollett with the idea, her response
was: "Well, I've got more kids."
Before she knew it, she and her siblings were auditioning in front of a bunch of studio
executives, doing a group performance of the Public Enemy song "Shut 'Em Down."
Jurnee later described the scene to The Hollywood Reporter, recounting a roomful of white executives
watching six Black children performing a politically charged song.
She recalled,
"I don't even think my mom was trying to make a statement, it's genuinely who we were.I
remember the men just sitting there, not dancing at all — and then they f---ing bought this
thing."
Debuting in 1994, "On Our Own" wasn't just a fictional version of the real-life Smollett
family dynamic.
In the series, the Smolletts played a family of orphaned siblings who fight to stay together
instead of letting themselves be split apart.
The sitcom was canceled after a single season, but they had fun while it lasted.
Jurnee later told The New York Times,
"It was like heaven.
We all were in the same school trailer.
We would eat hot links and bagels for breakfast every morning — very black and Jewish of
us."
People began to take Jurnee Smollett seriously as an actor when she put in a scene-stealing
performance opposite Samuel L. Jackson in 1997's "Eve's Bayou," a Southern gothic drama
about a family torn apart by a philandering father.
Smollett played Jackson's 10-year-old daughter in the critically acclaimed film, and she
still has a good relationship with him to this day.
She's since had a robust career in projects like "Friday Night Lights," "Birds of Prey,"
and "Lovecraft Country," and she's also made headlines for speaking out about the way she's
been treated on set as an adult.
Speaking in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in August 2020, she aligned herself
with the ideals of the Me Too movement and spoke about the consistent sexual harassment
she'd experience as an adult actress.
She confessed,
"I don't know that I can confidently say that I worked on one job prior to 'Lovecraft' — from
the time I was 12 on — where I hadn't been sexually harassed, whether it was by an AD,
a co-star, director, producer..."
She began working with the Time's Up charity after the Harvey Weinstein scandal rocked
Hollywood, and though she was among a number of celebs that stepped down from the board
in 2021, she credited the movement with helping her to claim a sense of self-empowerment in
the workplace and beyond.
In 2016, all six Smollett siblings reunited in front of the cameras for the Food Network
series "Smollett Eats," a show that celebrates their family's love of good food.
"It's about to be on and poppin'."
According to Jazz Smollett, things can get rather competitive in the kitchen for the
family whether they're on TV or not, but when they work together, they make a good team.
During an interview with Essence in 2018, she broke down the roles each member of the
family plays.
"Jake can cook absolutely anything.
He doesn't really like to bake but, he's like, king of the grill.
[...] I'm the bean queen.
Red beans and ham hocks, black beans and coconut rice, lentils, legumes [...] Jurnee's really
good with using different spices and she loves making a lot of different side dishes."
While Jazz didn't wouldn't crown any sibling as the best one in the kitchen, it seems as
though Jake is the one with that little bit of extra flair.
He launched a career as a celebrity chef on the back of "Smollett Eats," appearing as
a judge on shows like "Chopped Junior" and "The Chew."
He also made regular appearances on "The Rachael Ray Show," but a single segment wasn't enough
for his ambitions.
Instead, he wanted to share viewers more of an unfiltered experience with his own web
series,"Raw." his own web series.
In a 2020 interview with Sheen Magazine, Jake said,
"I just wanted to create a show that was true to life.
[...] I wanted to create a show where I could have dope people over, cook, and talk about
the interesting topics of life."
On top of their adventures in the world of food, Jake and Jazz Smollett have also teamed
up for their own show, "Living By Design with Jake and Jazz," a flagship program for fledgling
cable network Cleo TV.
"You're the boss.
She's the boss!"
The siblings have a natural chemistry that viewers adore, and they put it to good use
on their show.
The series focuses on a unique blend of interior design, DIY projects, and, of course, cooking.
We know that Jake inherited culinary skills from his mother, and it turns out that she
also taught him his way around a circular saw.
Jake described his role in the series in a 2019 interview with Ash Lemonade, saying,
"Each episode has a custom piece that I either build or refurbish.
Jazz will basically give me a few options – we work on colors together.
I'm building pieces all from scratch and it's a great time.
It's a passion of mine to build and I've been doing it, helping my mom, since I was a kid."
As part of the series, Jake prepares a meal for each episode's guests, while Jazz takes
care of dessert — once she's done making all the interior design decisions for their
home, of course.
Jurnee and Jussie may have been more recognizable names for the last few years, but Jazz and
Jake are proving to be a popular duo.
Their unique lifestyle show returned for a second season in 2021.
As Jazz said in an interview with Black Film,
"We are so proud of this show.
It has been such a labor of love."
For years, Jussie Smollett was primarily known for playing Jamal Lyon, one of the main characters
on the hit Fox series "Empire."
The series showcased both his acting and musical talents, and he used his platform to help
establish a career as a musician.
But all of that changed one fateful night in 2019 when Jussie made the explosive claim
that he was the victim of a vicious hate crime.
When Jussie told police in Chicago that he had been attacked by two men who shouted racial
and homophobic slurs, wrapped a noose around his neck, and doused him with bleach, the
story made international news.
But in a stunning reversal, Jussie himself ended up arrested, accused of filing a false
police report and staging the entire incident.
Evidence soon emerged, revealed by the police, that the actor had paid brothers Olabinjo
and Abimbola Osundairo, whom he knew as personal acquaintances, $3,500 to carry out the staged
attack.
Smollett maintained that the story was no hoax, even after the Osundairos revealed their
version of the story to the police.
As The New York Times reported, they told police that the actor was unhappy with his
"Empire" salary and thought the assault would boost his profile.
It was later reported that Jussie did not originally intend to go to the police with
the story.
Jussie was charged with filing a false police report in February 2019, but prosecutors dropped
the charges the following month, which Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called, quote, "a whitewash
of justice."
A special prosecutor was put on the case, and in 2021, the actor found himself back
in court on six counts of lying to police.
In public at least, Jussie Smollett's siblings have maintained support for him as he's weathered
accusations of wrongdoing, criminal charges, and a high-profile trial.
When Jurnee Smollett met with The Hollywood Reporter to promote her hit HBO show "Lovecraft
Country" in 2020, she revealed that her family's world had been turned upside down by the Jussie
situation.
The "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey" star spoke publicly about the incident for the first
time during the interview, and she made it clear that she believes her brother's version
of events over that of the Chicago police.
She told the outlet,
"It's been f---ing painful.
One of the most painful things my family's ever experienced — to love someone as much
as we love my brother, and to watch someone who you love that much go through something
like this, that is so public, has been devastating."
Jurnee wasn't the only Smollett sibling to voice support, either.
In an interview with People six months after the alleged attack, Jazz Smollett said they're
all "there for each other" and, quote, "know the truth" about what happened.
Eldest sibling JoJo Smollett broke his silence in an exclusive op-ed for BET, writing,
"Like so many others, this entire process quickly devolved from a focus on him as a
victim of assault, to him being falsely accused and held responsible for a crime that was
perpetrated against him."
As we publish this video, the jury has not rendered their decision on Jussie’s fate.
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