I'm Rebecca Lavoie, and this is You Can't Make This Up.

You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films.

On today's episode, we take a closer look at the Netflix documentary film, The Truth About Jesse Smollett. The first line out of his mouth was, yeah, it's a bunch of bullshit. I said, is that on the record? He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is not on the record. I said, well, what can I, what can I tweet? What can I say? He goes,

just say that Chicago police are taking this very seriously, but that we're skeptical.

Today we're talking to director Goggin Rayhill. Sympathy for Jesse Smollett turned to outrage after police said the hate crime he reported was a hoax, claiming the TV star paid

two men to attack him. Though his accomplices confessed, Smolett has maintained his innocence.

Now, he points to new evidence he says prove the racially charged assault was real.

In the Netflix documentary, the truth about Jesse Smolett, we hear directly from the actor about his claim he was beaten by racists that frigid night on a Chicago sidewalk.

We also hear from police, journalists, and the two men who say Smolett paid them to fake the crime.

The film also explores unexamined evidence which questions whether the assailants were the two black men who took responsibility,

or whether they were white men like the actor said they were.

This is more the way that Jussie Smollett described his two attackers.

That's when I started to think, could it be possible that Jassie Smollett is actually innocent?

Yeah. And I'm joined now by director Goggin' Ray Hill. Welcome to You Can't Make This Up.

Hi. Thanks for having me, Rebecca.

So first things first, the title of your film is The Truth About Jesse Smollett, Question Mark.

Tell us about the decision to put the question mark there.

Well, I think this is a story which follows two concurrent narratives.

They're competing narratives.

And so the approach has been to tell both these stories and allow the viewer to sort of play jury, I suppose, and decide for themselves

which narrative they are kind of leaning towards in terms of what they think really happened.

And so that question mark, I think, sort of emphasizes that slightly unconventional sort of

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