On Friday, Fox announced that Jussie Smollett has been accused of staging a homophobic and racist attack against himself in late January. Chicago police believe that this was a publicity stunt to boost his profile and to raise the salary which he was dissatisfied with.

According to the Chicago Police Department, on January 29th, Smollett told police that two masked men attacked him. The two men allegedly beat him, poured an unknown chemical on him, made racial and homophobic slurs, and tied a rope around his neck before they fled the scene. The attack occurred around 2 a.m., and was apparently carried out after a “threatening letter” that Smollett sent to himself failed to gain enough attention in order for Smollett’s salary to be raised.

According to NBC Chicago, early into the investigation, “Smollett was hesitant to file a police report about the crime, but his manager encouraged him to.” NBC Chicago says Smollett and his team did not initially provide their phones as evidence, telling police that they couldn’t be away from their phones for long periods of time.

According to NBC Chicago, Detectives reviewed hundreds of hours of footage from public and private surveillance cameras to determine if this was a possible hate crime, but it is believed that Smollett paid men to carry out the attack. In an interview with NBC, Chicago Police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi states, “The area is home to many high-end hotels and restaurants and has hundreds of cameras, so there are still many more videos for investigators to collect and go through as they try to get a complete picture of Smollett’s walk home.”

Smollett was taken into police custody on Thursday afternoon, and was released on $100,000 bail. Along with felony charges of disorderly conduct and the filing of fake police reports, Smollett’s character Jamal will be removed from the last two episodes of the Empire season.

Smollett is currently under fire by prosecutors, law enforcement officers, fans of Empire, and even the President of the United States, who tweeted, “@JussieSmollett- what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!? #MAGA”. Criticism of Smollett worsened after the two men that allegedly attacked him came forward to confirm that the attack was, in fact, staged by Smollett.

During the past week, Empire and Fox stood by Smollett until it was confirmed that he had been planning to prepare money to buy supplies, drugs, and setting up meetings with brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundario- the “attackers,” as well as Smollett’s friends and ecstasy dealers. Smollett met the brothers when Abimbola played a stand-in for Smollett’s love interest on the show.

“Jussie has been an important member of our Empire family for the past five years and we care about him deeply,” producers of the show said after the news broke. “While these allegations are very disturbing, we are placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays out. We are also aware of the effects of this process on the cast and crew members who work on our show and to avoid further disruption on set, we have decided to remove the role of ‘Jamal’ from the final two episodes of the season.”