Jussie Smollett has been fired from Empire

One day after Jussie Smollett was arrested on felony charges of filing a false report of a hate crime, a case that drew widespread condemnation across the US, the producers of the show Empire announced that they have cut the actor from the rest of the show’s fifth season.

“The events of the past few weeks have been incredibly emotional for all of us,” the show’s executive producers said in a statement issued Friday, according to Deadline.com, adding, “Jussie has been an important member of our Empire family for the past five years and we care about him deeply. 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.”