‘Empire’: Jamal Scene Mirrors Jussie Smollett Scandal

Empire star Jussie Smollett was front, center and broken-hearted during the show’s spring premiere.

As “My Fault Is Past” mostly dealt with Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Lucious (Terrence Howard) dealing with the aftermath of Kingsley’s (A.Z. Kelsey) big reveal that he is Lucious’s son, Jamal (Smollett) also had some things to figure out during the eventful episode.

Reeling from the reveal of his half-brother, the singer chose blow off some steam by giving a surprise performance at his alma mater, Urban Arts High School, along with the youth band.

At the end of the performance, he addressed the crowd with a speech that notably mirrored the actor’s current behind-the-scenes controversy.

“Thank you much. So happy to be here,” Jamal said. “I don’t know if y’all been reading the blogs and all that foolishness but, it’s kind of been a tough week so, I had to come home!”

“I love y’all so much. Stick together O.K?” He said before leaving the stage and hugging his friend Becky (Gabourey Sidibe).

Jamal was also stuck with some severe relationship drama with his fiancé Kai (Toby Onwumere). After they fought in the winter premiere, Kai found himself in the middle of Lucious’ investigation into the data mining claims against him and Becky.

After the family celebrate their successful rise back to leading the Empire company, Lucious breaks the news to Jamal that it was was Kai who helped them get their names cleared of all the charges. When he gets back to the apartment, Kai tells Jamal he still plans to leave town after seeing his families’ dangerous actions.

“Violence doesn’t scare me,” Kai says. “But man, your family does… We were so happy in London. Away from them… Let’s just go home.”

Jamal tells his fiancé that he’s a Lyon and won’t apologize for it before he breaks up his engagement. After Andre (Trai Byers) mysteriously collapsed while driving, the episode came to a dramatic with Jamal performing a powerful ballad as Cookie and Lucious discussed Kingley’s existence and their past.

After the spring premiere, Smollett will appear in the six subsequent episodes of the Fox drama series before his character gets written off for the last two episodes of the season. The decision to take Jamal out comes as producers chose to prevent further disruptions to the show’s filming schedule while Smollett deals with the case against him for allegedly staging a hate crime in late January.

Empire airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.