Empire featured so many celebrity guest stars in its second season that even co-creator Danny Strong suggested in an interview that they had gone a little overboard. “I do think we’ve had too many guest stars,” he told Deadline midway through the season’s run in December. “I think, maybe because … now we can get anyone we want, we were too guest-star heavy for a while.” Strong then shot down the rumor that Mariah Carey—a frequent collaborator of co-creator Lee Daniels—would be appearing sometime in the remainder of the second season, adding that “it’s going to be way lighter on the celebrity guest stars.”
Six months later, however, and the show’s creators seem to have changed their tune. Empire has quickly assembled another imposing guest actor lineup for its third season—and it’s a lineup that now includes the elusive chanteuse herself. After Birdman, Sierra McClain, French Montana, and others were all announced to appear some weeks ago, it was confirmed Monday at the Television Critics Association press tour that Carey will be joining the hip-hop phenomenon this fall. She’s set to play Kitty, a music superstar who collaborates and bonds with Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) on the Oct. 5 episode of the season. The role sounds somewhat similar to the one Alicia Keys played last year—though we’re fine with pretty much anything, so long as the show is finished with casting celebrities as imprisoned cannibals.
