An interview featuring actress Ellen Page blaming President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for the “hate” that led to the hoax attack against Empire star Jussie Smollett has amassed over 18 million views.
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last month, the actress took particular aim at Pence over his long-held opposition to same-sex marriage.
“The vice president of America wishes I didn’t have the love with my wife,” Ellen Page explained. “If you are in a position of power and you hate people, and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is going to happen? Kids are going to be abused and they’re going to kill themselves, and people are going to be beaten on the street.”
The 31-year-old, who came out as a lesbian in 2014, also blasted the media for questioning Smollett’s version of events.
“I have traveled the world and I have met the most marginalized people you could meet. I am lucky to have this time and the privilege to say this,” she said tearfully. “This needs to fucking stop.”
“The urgency is so severe. But instead, we have a media that’s barely talking about it,” the Juno star ranted. We have a media that says it’s a debate that whether or not what happened to Jussie Smollett is a hate crime. It’s absurd. It’s not a fucking debate.”
Smollett, who is both black and gay, last month claimed he was the victim of a hate crime attack by two masked men shouting racist and homophobic slurs, telling police they looped a rope around his neck, doused him in an unidentified chemical substance and shouted “This is MAGA country!” before fleeing the scene.
Yet on Saturday evening, CNN crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz reported that Chicago Police now believe that “Smollett paid two men to orchestrate the assault,” adding that the “the two men are now cooperating fully with law enforcement.”
Page’s interview currently has over 16.7 million views on Twitter, as well as a further 1.4 million views on YouTube. She has yet to publicly comment on the case’s latest development.
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