LOS ANGELES — Season 6 of “Empire” will be Lyon family’s last chance to roar.
Fox announced on Monday the drama starring Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard will come to close following its recently announced sixth season.
“As the series enters its final season, one thing is for sure, the Lyons never go out without a bang,” the network said in a release.
On the show, Henson and Howard star as Cookie and Lucious Lyon, a married couple who head an ever drama-plagued musical empire.
In announcing the show’s renewal late last month, Fox declined to say for sure whether embattled star Jussie Smollett would be returning at some point during the new season, adding that there were “no plans” for him to do so at the time.
“We’ve been told that Jussie will not be on ‘Empire’ in the beginning of the season, but he appreciates they have extended his contract to keep Jamal’s future open,” a spokesperson for Smollett said in a statement said in late April.
Smollett did not appear in the final two episodes of the show’s current season, having been written out as he grappled with the aftermath of what Chicago police have said was a staged attack.
The decision, producers said at the time, was made to “avoid further disruption on set.”
At the end of the season, Smollett’s character, Jamal, the middle brother of the Lyon family at the center of the show, was said to be on his honeymoon with his new husband.
Smollett was charged with multiple felony counts alleging the actor duped the Chicago police into believing he had been the target of a hate crime.
Prosecutors later dropped the charges against Smollett, but the city has asked him for more than $130,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.
Smollett denied the allegations and his attorneys have said the actor “will not be intimidated into paying.”
Smollett has starred on “Empire” since the show’s start in 2015.
Fox dropped the news about the impending end of “Empire” as part of a larger announcement about its new primetime lineup.