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Your life, your country, your listening to the Lava Agram Podcast.

I love that music. It always makes me think of New Orleans when I hear that music.

It's got a little grind to it. Raymond Eroio is sitting in for Laura for a moment.

She'll be joining us in moments. I want to start with this story of Jesse Smollett.

Now this is the Empire actor who claims he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by...

Is it more than one man? Is it a pair of men?

One of whom had a man got on and he claims he was beaten, broke a rib and had a news tied around his neck.

When I see the attacker, masked and he said, this man got country...

Punches me right in the face. I punched his ass back.

And then we started tussling. He was very icy. And we ended up tussling by the stairs.

Fighting, fighting, fighting. There was a second person involved who was kicking me in my back. And then it just stopped.

Well, he's talking to Robin Roberts now about his alleged hate crime.

And there are holes in the story that continue to emerge. Now he's very angry about not the attackers so much as the reception the story has received.

I'm pissed off. What is it that has you so angry? Is it the attackers?

It's the attackers but it's also the attacks. It's like, you know at first it was a thing of like, listen if I tell the truth then that's it because it's truth.

Then it became a thing of like, oh, how can you doubt that? How do you not believe that? It's the truth.

And then it became a thing of like, oh, it's not necessarily that you don't believe that this is the truth.

You don't even want to see the truth.

Okay, well the truth is still to be determined. And there are some holes in the story.

The night that he comes to the he comes to this this visit a friend in a high rise.

He goes into the apartment. He has this news like a tie around his neck.

...