Image by GlobalGrind.com

On May 12th, Jussie Smollet, tweeted that he will be leaving Fox’s Empire after playing the role of Jamal Lyon for 2 seasons. Jamal Lyon is a famous R&B artist and also the 2nd born son to the CEO of the prestigious record label, Empire. He is also the most beloved the show, since he has been struggling with his father accepting him for being gay.

Why is Jussie Smollet leaving? According to BET.com, Smollet wanted to be paid as much as Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, who play his parents on the show. Both Howard and Henson are already huge stars, so their salary will obviously be more than anyone else in the show, since everyone else (including Smollet) are all rising stars.

Terrence and Howard explained that they also get extra checks from doing special events and Smollet was not given the same opportunity. Also they came to Smollet’s defense by saying, “Jussie wasn’t asking for too much money – just a nice raise. But the people at FOX were like, no, there is no money left in the budget.”

image by Bossip.com

In the latest episode of Empire that premiered last week, Jamal Lyon accidently gets shot by Freda Gatz (Bre-Z) when aiming for his father, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard). The episode ended with Jamal in surgery and with the Lyon family in tears in the hospital waiting for the outcome.

With all the drama currently happening on Empire and Smollet’s intriguing tweet, one can’t help but wonder if Jamal Lyon will die in next week’s episode of Empire. Even though we all see it coming, if he does die, it is going to be one of the most dramatic episodes ever in Empire history. The musical soundtrack behind Empire will not be the same without Jamal Lyon’s voice since he always gave the R&B touch to almost every song in the album.