Jussie Smollett

Jussie Smollett is an American actor best known for playing Jamal Lyon — a gay R&B singer navigating his family's hip-hop empire and his own coming out — on Empire (Fox, 2015–2020). His portrayal of a gay Black man in a mainstream hip-hop drama was celebrated for bringing queer Black identity to a broad primetime audience. He came out as gay in a 2015 interview, becoming one of the few Black male actors on a major network drama to be openly gay while playing a gay character. His career was significantly disrupted by legal controversies from 2019 onward.