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Many of country music’s biggest names were all under one roof Wednesday night (Nov. 20) for the 2024 Country Music Association Awards, where stars such as Jelly Roll, Shaboozey and more took the stage for a number of memorable performances. In addition to sentimental tributes to George Strait — which was led by one of […]
Shaboozey is taking things in stride after Wednesday night’s (Nov. 20) CMA Awards — and following a curious comment from Cody Johnson’s producer Trent Willmon.
At the CMAs — which were held at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena — Shaboozey was nominated for new artist of the year and single of the year for “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” The smash hit has led the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 for 18 nonconsecutive weeks, and is one week away from setting a new record. Shaboozey also performed during the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Johnson was a big winner during the evening, picking up album of the year for his project Leather, which featured his recent hits “The Painter” and “Dirt Cheap.” It was a crowning moment for the Texas native known affectionately by fans as CoJo, who has been steadily building his reputation for recording stellar songs and putting on high-energy concerts.
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When Johnson and his producer Willmon took the stage to accept the honor, Willmon told the audience, “It takes an army of people to make a great record, but I gotta tell ya, this is for this cowboy who’s been kicking shaboozey for a lot of years, y’all.”
Many country music fans took to social media with anger and confusion over the comment, which seemingly threw shade at Shaboozey, though some were not certain if the comment was a deliberate dig at the “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hitmaker, or an unfortunate attempt at a joke that simply came off wrong.
Either way, Shaboozey doesn’t seem bothered by the comment. Shaboozey tweeted a photo of himself after the show, with the caption, “Ain’t nobody kicking me!”
Shaboozey may not have taken home a CMA trophy, but he has more shots at awards accolades ahead of him, as he’s up for five Grammy Awards in 2025, including multiple nominations for “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” in the categories of best country song, best country solo performance and song of the year. Shaboozey is also up for the Grammy for best new artist, while the song “Spaghettii,” his collaboration with Beyoncé and Linda Martell on the pop superstar’s Cowboy Carter, is up for best melodic rap performance.
Wednesday night’s (Nov. 20) 58th annual Country Music Association Awards showcased the best and brightest that country has to offer, from its rising stars to a moving tribute to the man they call the King of Country, George Strait.
It also featured multiple appearances from fresh-to-the-genre rapper-turned-crooner Post Malone, as well as a couple spotlight moments for Jelly Roll, who cemented his status as one of the brightest, most inspiring singers in Nashville when he held his own with Brooks & Dunn during a performance of their inspiring gospel-tinged track “Believe.”
Malone and Chris Stapleton kicked things off with their duet “California Sober,” followed by new artist of the year winner Megan Moroney’s glitzy “Am I Okay?” and Shaboozey’s ramble through his ballad “Highway,” which gave way to his 18-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
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Other notable duets came from Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan on “Cowboys Cry Too,” Thomas Rhett and Teddy Swims mashing up “Somethin’ ‘Bout a Woman” and “Lose Control,” and Cody Johnson and Carrie Underwood’s “I’m Gonna Love You.”
Though he went into the night with seven nominations, entertainer of the year winner Morgan Wallen was a no-show, while Stapleton had a great night, winning three of the top five prizes, including single of the year and song of the year for “White Horse.”
If you missed some, or all, of the action, check out all of the 2024 CMA Awards performances below.
Post Malone and Chris Stapleton
The dynamic duo opened the show in style with a run through their weed-is-acceptable anthem from Posty’s hit debut country album, F-1 Trillion.
Megan Moroney
The new artist of the year honoree brought the glam with a bedazzled performance of the title track from her latest album, Am I Okay?
Shaboozey
For a minute there it seemed like this year’s breakthrough country superstar might eschew his ubiquitous hit in favor of the more contemplative new single, “Highway.” No worries, though, he also came through with a high-spirited take on “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” that had the all-star crowd at Bridgestone Arena dancing and singing along.
Ella Langley and Riley Green
After winning musical event of the year before the broadcast, the duo performed their honored old-school duet, “You Look Like You Love Me,” with Langley moseying to the stage after starting out on the arena floor as she sang-talked her way to the barroom set on the main stage. Green followed suit, making the same slow walk with his trusty acoustic slung across his chest.
Thomas Rhett and Teddy Swims
Dressed in their finest black leathers, Rhett and Swims started in the venue’s backstage area and slow walked into the spotlight for a rumble through the former’s soulful “Somethin’ ‘Bout a Woman” from Rhett’s seventh studio album, About a Woman. Keeping the love vibes going, they pivoted to Swims’ equally impassioned Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Lose Control.”
Luke Combs
Combs lit up the stage with his Twisters soundtrack hit “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma,” barreling through the rock-tinged track on a set featuring giant rusty oil derricks, towering pyro effects and digital lightning flashing behind him.
Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan
Ballerini and Kahan performed their duet “Cowboys Cry Too” — the lead single from Ballerini’s recently released fifth album, Patterns — live for the first time together on TV.
Cody Johnson and Carrie Underwood
With images of snow-capped mountains behind them, Johnson and Underwood gave us all the feels with their moving duet from the deluxe edition of his 2023 Leather album.
Chris Stapleton
The night’s big winner proved why he’s a humble Nashville favorite son with an unadorned, mesmerizing performance of his Higher ballad “What Am I Gonna Do,” accompanied by his “secret weapon,” wife singer/songwriter Morgane Stapleton.
Kacey Musgraves
Musgraves didn’t need anything besides her trusty acoustic and her bell-clear voice to strum her way through the wonder-of-the-universe single “The Architect” from this year’s Deeper Well album.
Brooks & Dunn and Jelly Roll
The triple-threat trio brought the CMAs to church with their emotional, soaring performance of the beloved duo’s gospel-tinged “Believe,” backed by a full orchestra and swaying choir.
Lainey Wilson
The evening’s co-host took the crowd to a nighttime tailgate party with her impassioned run through her latest single, “4x4xU,” surrounded by roaring campfires and glittering stars.
Bailey Zimmerman
Injecting some rock energy into the proceedings, Zimmerman cut loose with his twangy “New to Country” on a set accented by a four-wheeler, his initials in towering red letters and a bunch of Solo cup-swigging bros playing beer pong with a wrestler.
George Strait tribute featuring Lainey Wilson, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Parker McCollum and Chris Stapleton
The beloved King of Country got his proper respect during a nine-minute, all-star tribute that kicked off with Wilson performing “Amarillo By Morning,” followed by Johnson’s take on “Give It Away,” Lambert and McCollum joining in on “Troubadour” and the Country Music Hall of Famer himself popping out with Stapleton for their collab, “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame.”
Ashley McBryde
McBryde’s reverential tribute to late country outlaw Kris Kristofferson via his classic “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” brought a hush over the arena as her crystalline voice was accompanied by a series of pictures of the beloved singer who died at 88 in September.
Luke Bryan
The American Idol judge and night’s co-host kept it simple with a bare bones, earnest run through his top 5 Country Airplay hit, “Love You, Miss You, Mean It.”
Eric Church
In his ongoing quest to keep a light on those Americans in his home state of North Carolina impacted by Hurricane Helene, Church played “Darkest Hour,” a song he released last month to help with recovery efforts. The impassioned Van Morrison-like ballad, which found Church backed by a horn and string section and choir, featured projected images from the aftermath of the devastating storm.
Editor’s note: At press time Post Malone’s solo performance of his ballad “Yours,” Jelly Roll and Keith Urban’s team-up on “Liar” and the “American Girl” finale with Dierks Bentley, Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes were not available on the CMAs YouTube feed.
After a trajectory that spans over 20 years, Zion y Lennox are parting ways. Zion (real name: Felix Gerardo Ortiz Torres) announced the news on his Instagram account, where he revealed that after a “careful evaluation” since the beginning of 2024, he made the decision to separate from his long-time duo member, Lennox (real name: […]
Beyoncé‘s “Diva” nears the No. 1 spot on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart, but it’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” that remains atop the Nov. 23-dated tally for a seventh week.
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The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Nov. 11-17. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Maps” again reigns over Alphaville’s “Forever Young”; the pair of tunes have been Nos. 1 and 2 for six weeks in a row, dating back to the Oct. 19 ranking.
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But while the top three had also been static for four straight weeks, with Akon’s “Akon’s Beautiful Day” at No. 3 during that span, the top three gets a shake-up in the form of Beyoncé’s “Diva,” which jumps 6-3 in its fourth week on the ranking (“Akon’s Beautiful Day,” meanwhile, drops to No. 8).
TikTok uploads showing off creators’ diva-esque behavior continues to drive the ascension of “Diva,” originally released on Beyoncé’s 2008 album I Am…Sasha Fierce.
In the week ending Nov. 14, “Diva” sported an 11% gain in official U.S. steams to 2.6 million earned, according to Luminate.
Aphex Twin’s “QKThr” rises back to its No. 4 peak (after initially attaining it on the Oct. 26 ranking), while Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” rounds out the top five, leaping 7-5. Carey returns to the top five at virtually the same time as she did last year, as the holiday standard first hit No. 5 on the Nov. 25, 2023, tally, the first holiday season of the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s existence.
Other holiday-related moves include Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (down 13-14) and Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (up 22-21).
Gracie Abrams’ “That’s So True” reaches a new peak within the top 10, rising 8-6 in the song’s third week on the list. Concurrently the multimetric Billboard Hot 100 chart’s greatest gainer in streaming (up 25% to 23.5 million streams, good for No. 1 on the Streaming Songs ranking), “That’s So True” remains driven by lip-synching content and other edits.
And one song hits the top 10 of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for the first time: Grace McGuigan’s cover of “Amazing Grace,” which launches 21-10 in its second week. McGuigan’s cover of the religious standard, given a wide release earlier this month, has been used in a variety of ways on TikTok, from post-U.S.-election content to sports teams’ uploads and much more.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
Allow Snoop Dogg to be the soundtrack to your Black Friday shopping spree. The West Coast icon is set to close out season three of Amazon’s Amazon Music Live series with a career-spanning performance on Black Friday (Nov. 29).
Following the conclusion of the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders Black Friday Football game on Amazon Prime Video, Snoop will take the stage at 7 p.m. ET.
As a lover of both the NFL and hip-hop, it’s only fitting Snoop is closing out season three. The Doggfather’s performance will be live-streamed on Prime Video as well as Twitch.
The Death Row legend is slated to run through classics from his decorated catalog and give fans a taste of his upcoming joint album with Dr. Dre titled Missionary. Snoop follows in the footsteps of previous AML performers such as Big Sean and Jelly Roll this season. Girl group TWICE is set to perform on Thursday (Nov. 21), and will be the first K-pop group to take the Amazon Music Live stage.
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Before Missionary hits streaming services on Dec. 13, Snoop and Dre gave fans a sneak peek of the LP during a live episode of Drink Champs at ComplexCon in Las Vegas over the weekend.
The early returns saw the project draw rave reviews, as LeBron James, Jamie Foxx, Travis Kelce, Tony Yayo, Russ and more celebrities gave Snoop Dogg his flowers in his IG comment section.
Missionary marks the reuniting of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on a full-length project for the first time since Snoop’s 1993 Doggystyle debut album. The hitmakers have kept details of the LP on the low, but some special guests expected to appear on the album include Sting and Jelly Roll.
Jelly Roll raved about landing the collaboration in an October interview with Bootleg Kev, during which he confirmed his cameo.
“I won’t say anything about the record because he didn’t, but man, it’s special. It is really good,” he said. “I’m legitimately on the Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre album. It’s crazy. It’s unreal. Dude, Jimmy [Iovine] hits John [presumably Jelly Roll’s manager John Meneilly] and says, ‘Can we get on a FaceTime with Jelly Roll and Dre?’ I’m like, ‘Dr. Dre?’ I get on a FaceTime from my back porch. I’m like a kid. Jimmy’s there and I’m already like, ‘I cannot believe it’s Jimmy Iovine.’”
AllTrack, a U.S.-based collection society founded in 2017, has announced the launch of a mechanical rights division. Now, AllTrack members can opt-in to get their mechanical royalties collected along with performance royalties, making AllTrack the only U.S. performance rights organization (PRO) to collect both through a single platform.
With the move, AllTrack tells Billboard it hopes to become a competitor of DIY publishing administrators like SongTrust or TuneCore Publishing which offer short-term deals for small independent songwriters, who are often looking for a stopgap solution to collecting royalties before they sign larger publishing deals.
The AllTrack mechanical collection service will charge a 15% administration fee for all royalties collected, and writers using the service must sign a 2 year agreement.
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Around the world, it is customary for collection societies to collect both performance and mechanical royalties on behalf of writers, but these have always been separate services in the United States, adding to the complexity of the royalty collection process for songwriters. Since the passage of the Music Modernization Act (MMA) in 2017, the legislation that simplified the mechanical royalty collection process for the streaming age, mechanicals for interactive streaming have been collected by the MMA-mandated Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC).
The MLC is open for any songwriter who wants to sign up. Unlike PROs, it does not charge an administration fee to any songwriter or publisher for collecting, matching and processing royalties, given the MMA ordered the streaming services to pay for the MLC’s operations. When a songwriter signs up for AllTrack’s mechanical service, those mechanicals still go through processing with the MLC, but AllTrack becomes the liaison that ensures the writer is properly registered and collecting royalties from the MLC. Essentially, the firm wants to offer a one-stop shop for independent writers who find the multi-society system of royalty collection to be too cumbersome.
AllTrack will also collect mechanical royalties for its clients in areas that don’t fall under the domain of the MLC, including social media services like TikTok, YouTube and Meta, as well as fitness and gaming applications.
“We’re thrilled to expand our services to include mechanical rights, which typically represent a significant portion of a music creator’s publishing income,” says Hayden Bower, founder and CEO of AllTrack. “Our integrated approach addresses the independent sector’s long-standing need for a simplified royalty collection process. AllTrack members can now receive the compensation they’re entitled to faster and more efficiently than ever before.”
The news comes just months after AllTrack announced that it had been accepted into CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) and after the U.S. PRO system has come under more scrutiny. In September, Billboard broke the news that the House Judiciary Committee had sent a letter to the Copyright Office asking for further examination into PROs, citing “difficult to assess” royalty collections and the “proliferation of PROs.”
Luis Fonsi is on a winning streak. The Puerto Rican star is celebrating 25 years in music with a big tour that’s set to wrap in his beloved home country next year. His LP El Viaje just won a Latin Grammy for best pop vocal album, and the set is nominated for a Grammy in the best Latin pop album category. He’s also set to make his debut on the big screen on Friday (Nov. 22) as the male lead Rafael Reza, in the indie film Say a Little Prayer.
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Fonsi has acted before in television and theater, and making the leap from that to movies was in his plans– just not so soon, the “Despacito” hitmaker tells Billboard.
“It was an unexpected opportunity. It was one of these things that you think about and say to yourself, ‘Eventually I would love to dive into that world and see what doors open.’ But I wasn’t there yet,” Fonsi explains. “I was literally in the middle of working on an album and a tour — but a friend of mine, who is also connected to the movie’s production team, sent me the script, saying they were looking for the male lead role. I was already thinking it would be a ‘no’ even before reading the first page. I read it all the way to the end during a flight from Miami to Madrid, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this could be interesting.’”
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Say a Little Prayer, a rom-com starring Fonsi, Vannessa Vasquez, Jackie Cruz and Vivian Lamoli, centers around three best friends (Adela, Ruby and Cristina) who live in San Antonio, Texas and have had little-to-no luck in their romantic relationships. They resort to reciting a powerful prayer to find their “lost” husbands, which brings about chaos in their friendship — but it also brings Rafael into their lives. His magnetic charm as art curator and former musician seduces two of the friends, but only one has his heart.
“I could see myself — not only through the character, but through these stories. We’ve all gone through similar things, because it’s a film about friendship, family and love. So, I thought it would be the right first step,” says Fonsi, adding that he worked with an acting coach for the film. “I felt extremely comfortable shooting the film. There was never a moment of panic or thinking I didn’t belong there. The fact that I got to write the music also gave me a lot of confidence.”
Fonsi wrote the film’s official song, “Prayer in Your Eyes,” which his character performs during a date with Adela (Vasquez). He wrote and produced the song in two days thinking he didn’t need to turn it in until after he had shot his scenes. “I didn’t know it was going to be part of the story; I thought it was going to be the credits song of the film so I kinda put it off,” he says with a laugh. “Literally three days before I traveled to San Antonio to do my scenes, Patrick, the director, is like, ‘Hey, I really need to hear the song. We’re shooting a scene around it.’ Good thing is I work well under pressure. And I’m proud of the song. It has a little bit of country influence. It’s not country music, it’s a pop song but I automatically transported myself to San Antonio. It’s in English and that was fun too because I don’t do a lot of writing in English.”
The significance of his first big break on the big screen isn’t lost on Fonsi. As someone who has broken records in Latin music and changed the genre’s landscape with his global smash hit “Despacito,” he’s excited about contributing to the diversification of the film industry. Hispanic and Latin actors continue to remain excluded or left behind in Hollywood, according to a 2023 USC Annenberg Study, despite Latinos now making up nearly 20% of the U.S. population.
“I’m out here promoting Latin music every day, wanting it to be global, and there’s a lot of room to grow when we talk about Latin actors and directors in film,” says Fonsi. “For me, it has been so powerful to move the needle in Latin music and be part of what has happened with Latin music worldwide. And if I can move the needle ever so slightly in the film industry and be part of it, it’s going to make me feel so proud.”
Currently on his 25 Años Tour, which will wrap in March in Puerto Rico, Fonsi is reflecting on his latest wins, including a Latin Grammy for an album that captures his journey across these 25 years.
“El Viaje is very special to me,” he explains. “From the beginning, it was always an album; I wasn’t trying to write a radio-friendly song and a bunch of other songs. It started off as a concept album, every song is a place, city, a celebration of my 25-year journey. It meant the world to win because it reaffirmed that they got what I was trying to say. To get a nomination for the Grammys was icing on the cake. These past 25 years, there’s been so much evolution, not being afraid of reinventing myself,.
He continues to reflect: “I love that in every phase of this career, there’s something new they throw at you, and you figure out how to make it work within your world without really abandoning who you are as an artist. That’s what makes it fun.”
Directed by Patrick Perez Vidauri and written by Nancy De Los Santos-Reza, Say a Little Prayer premieres Friday in select AMC theaters across the country.
The cast and crew attend a private screening of Say A Little Prayer in San Antonio.
New Cadence Productions.
In November 2019, Michael Kiwanuka released his third album Kiwanuka at what felt like the edge of the world; the decade was coming to a close, and the pandemic that sent the globe into lockdown was just months away. He sings of such a place on the LP’s highlight “Solid Ground,” ruminating on how “it feels to be on your own” away from all the noise and bluster, imagining himself standing at the precipice of “where there’ll be no one around.” It was a moment and message that proved prescient.
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Kiwanuka was, by design, the singer-songwriter’s magnum opus. The record charted at No. 2 on the U.K.’s Official Album Charts and The Guardian named it “one of the greatest albums of the decade” right at the buzzer. It soon landed a Grammy nomination for best rock album, and won the prestigious Mercury Prize in the U.K.. How does one follow up an album with such acclaim?
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You don’t, Kiwanuka tells Billboard in the offices of Universal Music in London, where he is signed to Polydor Records: “All I knew is that I wanted to do something different, so that it was harder to compare. It was a good impetus to choose another direction creatively without losing who I am.”
That switch-up is his fourth album Small Changes, released Nov. 22. The London-born, Southampton-based artist retains his signature sound, blending sweet soulful grooves and melodies with elements of psych music and funk, but pares things back a touch.
He deliberately focused on making his vocals more of a presence, something he had been reluctant to do over his decade-long career. Hear it on “Rest of Me,” where his rich voice sits atop a lolling bassline and shuffling beats; in the past, additional production flushes would have guided the listener’s ears elsewhere, but here his voice stands central to the success of the song.
“I’ve got this obsession now with the idea that if a busker can play the song, and it sounds good going through a really sh-tty amp and their voice is through a bad mic,” he says. “If the song and the lyrics still move you, you’ve done the hardest thing.”
Michael Kiwanuka
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Kiwanuka signed to Polydor in 2011 and a year later won BBC’s Sound of… poll, a new music-focused list which has also been won by Adele, Haim, Sam Smith and PinkPantheress. He released his debut Home Again in 2012, and then topped the U.K. Albums Chart with 2016’s sophomore LP Love & Hate. His song “Cold Little Heart” appeared on the latter, and was selected by HBO to be the opening theme to hit TV drama Big Little Lies, starring Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman. The song now sits at over 307 million streams on Spotify.
It was at this time that Kiwanuka formed a formidable relationship. It came with super-producer Danger Mouse, one half of pop group Gnarls Barkley, and London-based producer Inflo, the mastermind behind mysterious project Sault, which Kiwanuka has briefly performed as part of. The triumvirate have since worked together on what Kiwanuka is calling a “trilogy” of records, across Love & Hate, Kiwanuka and Small Changes.
“In 20 years time, this will still be the most poignant creative relationship that I’ll ever have,” Kiwanuka says. He feels that the trio all met each other “right at the time when we needed it.” Danger Mouse – whose production credits include Adele’s 25, Gorillaz’ Demon Days and U2’s Songs of Innocence – found a “passion for producing records again,” and was drawn to Kiwanuka and Inflo as “two young Black guys trying to prove ourselves” in the music industry. “I had this double-whammy of my mind being opened by two different people at the same time, in different ways.”
The comfortability and confidence in that relationship has enabled Kiwanuka to make his most authentic record, and usher in a stylish new era. Small Changes’ accompanying visuals are arresting in their simplicity: the video for single “Lowdown” makes six minutes out of a lone bike rider at dusk. During his performance at Glastonbury Festival in June, Kiwanuka paid homage to his upbringing by wearing a Kanzu robe, a traditional outfit in Uganda where his parents emigrated from prior to his birth.
Kiwanuka has spoken before about his feeling of “imposter syndrome,” but that the shifting sands that the music industry is built upon now provide artists with opportunities. “They’re [major labels] nowhere near as powerful as they once were when I was starting out, running the shop and telling people what to do. It felt like everything they said was gospel. It affected how you made music, or at least affected your confidence.”
Kiwanuka points to Irish rock band Fontaines D.C. and rising U.S. guitarist and producer Mk.gee as examples of artists who have pushed past the noise to release strikingly original LPs in recent months.
“The volatile relationship of the industry has actually made it artist-friendly, because no-one knows what to do,” he says. “So they let you create and let you make records and experiment because they don’t know what to say… which is fantastic!”
Kiwanuka
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Building confidence in his creative output and vocals has been a journey that has been hard-won. He credits the move away from London as giving him additional conviction in his capabilities: “You hear your own voice a bit louder, but you have to have a bit more conviction because you have no choice. You don’t have as much to compare it to.”
What would he tell his younger self, the one eager to please the public, his label and to meet his own personal standards? “There’s strength in your voice. People always try to tell you but you don’t hear it,” he says. “You’re always accepting advice from other people so you always think the validation is going to come from outside, and then one day you realize it’s not.”
He adds, “I was always trying to sound like my favorite singers, or [thinking] that [my vocals] weren’t good enough. But now I think I just want to sound like me.”
The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned Jussie Smollett’s 2021 conviction for allegedly staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself in 2019, ruling on Thursday (Nov. 21) that his rights had been violated when a special prosecutor stepped in to retry him despite the Cook County State’ Attorney’s Office initially dropping all charges against him.
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“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” the court wrote in its decision, according to The Chicago Tribune. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.”
The decision comes more than five years after the singer-actor first reported that two men had assaulted him, yelled racist and homophobic slurs and placed a noose around his neck in downtown Chicago. Two years later, a jury found Smollett — who is Black and gay — guilty of five of six counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly lying to police about the incident, with the prosecution accusing him of hiring the two men to attack him because he was unhappy with his employer’s response to hate mail he’d received, according to the Associated Press.
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In addition to 30 months of probation, Smollett — who has maintained his innocence — was ordered to pay $130,160 in restitution and sentenced to 150 days in jail, which he never served due to the lengthy appeals process that has played out in the years since. A lower court previously upheld the convictions in a split 2-1 decision, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear the actor’s appeal — and on Thursday, sided in his favor.
Billboard has reached out to Smollett’s lawyer and rep for comment.
The most crucial element of the Supreme Court’s ruling was the fact that Cook County had originally dropped the charges against him — despite brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo testifying that Smollett had indeed paid them to carry out the attack — citing that the star had forfeited his $10,000 bond and done community service. The move sparked national debate over State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s handling of the case, from which she’d recused herself.
As national outcry increased, former Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed former U.S. attorney Dan Webb as special prosecutor amid scrutiny around the decision. Webb eventually refiled the charges, which Smollett’s legal team has countered by arguing that double jeopardy was attached when he forfeited his $10,000 bail bond.
Again, Smollett has maintained that he was not behind the attack, testifying at his trial in 2021 that “there was no hoax.” In April 2022, he declared his innocence once again on his song “Thank You God…,” rapping, “Just remember this, this ain’t that situation/ You think I’m stupid enough to kill my reputation?/ Just to look like a victim, like it’s something fun/ Y’all better look at someone else, you got the wrong one.”
