There is no connection except in a half baked imagination.
RB was trying to be ironically funny by making fun of ignorant social media with ignorant posts of her own but the genre turned against her in the vile swamp of the Trump era and a crowded threat matrix vs. linear sane liberals.

Smollet employed a fraudulent misguided desperate attempt to promote himself after his employment was terminated.
He should have cooked up a better plan and baked it fully.