Jason Mitchell of Straight Outta Compton fame is speaking out against allegations that he was fired from Showtime’s The Chi and Netflix’s Desperados and dropped by his agent and manager over sexual harassment allegations waged by his former co-star Tiffany Boone.
Mitchell appeared on The Breakfast Club on Monday and claimed that he wasn’t given a fair chance to defend himself before getting dropped from the Netflix film.
“To be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure what the actual allegations themselves were, but I can tell you what happened,” Mitchell stated before telling the hosts that he was in Mexico City and was out with a female coworker who got drunk.
“Being the person that I am, I felt responsible to make sure she got home,” Mitchell said. He then added, “Because they’re already telling us like, ‘Don’t take the Ubers, don’t trust these people, don’t jump in a cab, don’t do any of that.’ We’re in Mexico City and we’re in a foreign land and we should stick together. This isn’t where I leave her.”
Mitchell continued, “So I make sure she got home and the next day, it kind of all slapped me in the face. I made sure she got home, but other than that, nothing really happened.”
Mitchell said that he “felt like he was doing the right thing” by accompanying the coworker home, but after rehearsal was canceled the next day, he called in to share his side of the story. He said he was never told exactly what he was accused of.
Mitchell’s firing from the Chi, which followed his firing from Desperados, was for a completely separate issue, according to Mitchell. He said, “I was completely taken back by the whole situation that happened, but the actual reason I got let go was because Disney saw what was going on with Desperados and they had just bought Showtime. So they decided not to pick up my option.”
Mitchell denied any sexual misconduct issues with actress Tiffany Boone, his costar on The Chi. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Boone had made repeated complaints of “sexual harassment” and felt “unsafe” around Mitchell. Mitchell feels that Boone would have told him “in that moment” if she had a problem with him.
“I really hate to say this, because I’m all for the Me Too Movement; I have two beautiful daughters who I would like to be in the business, so I’m all for the Me Too Movement,” Mitchell said. “But I think in this situation Ayanna (Floyd Davis-the season two showrunner) tried to use it as a really, really ugly weapon.”
Check out the interview here:
Since losing movie and TV roles amid the sexual harassment allegations, Jason Mitchell has completed a mental health course that, according to The Shade Room, helped with “anger management, self-awareness, acceptance of responsibility, and purpose.”