Empire Gets Second Season + Lee Daniels Wants to Expose Homophobia

Great news for fans of Empire! The Fox series has been picked up for a second season, which is surprising as they’ve only aired two episodes to date. What isn’t surprising is the incredible numbers that the 20th Century Fox Television drama from Lee Daniels and Danny Strong has garnered. Reportedly, the series is the No. 1 new series of the season. According to the Hollywood Reporter, following its second episode, it is the only new broadcast drama this season to grow from week one to week two. It tied ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder as the No. 1 new broadcast series premiere among adults 18-49.

The Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson led cast reportedly has more VOD viewing than any other Fox show this season, earning more than 1.1 million total viewers.

A photo posted by Jussie Smollett (@jussiesmollett) on Jan 17, 2015 at 1:01pm PST

Jussie Smollett, who plays Jamal on Empire, shared his excitement, writing on Instagram:

I am so excited and thankful that @EmpireFOX has been renewed for season 2! Thank you to each and every one of you beauties for showing so much love. I’m overwhelmed.

In other Empire news, Lee Daniels (who also directed The Butler and Precious) recently said that he wants to “blow the lid off homophobia” in the African-American community with a depiction of