Chilli of TLC fame hopes that the nearly all-White jury in the trial of the accused killers of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, will render the right verdict based on the evidence.
The jury is comprised of 11 Whites and one Black person. While Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she was “devastated” by the jury’s racial makeup, she hopes they will nevertheless deliver justice for her slain son.
Chilli, née Rozanda Ocielian Thomas, shares those sentiments. She also cautioned folks against expecting the worst from the jury just because their race is the same as the three men accused of killing the Black jogger in February 2020.
“I look at it like this. We have to believe that there are kind, good-hearted people out there no matter what color they are, so I would say let’s look at it like that,” Chilli, 50, told TMZ at the Los Angeles International Airport. “Just because it’s not the same skin color doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be fair, because to me it’s pretty obvious what happened. We would just pray and hope that they see the same.”
As a self-professed Christian, Chilli said she holds out “hope and believe that maybe some of those guys are too. We just have to hope that, again, they’re gonna be truthful about this.”
Listen to the interview in full below.
