Jonathan Majors was arrested on Saturday in New York for misdemeanor assault, aggravated harassment, attempted assault and harassment.
Majors is having a moment right now. He’s starring in two movies on the box office top ten list, Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania both opening at number one. Critics and audiences have been raving about his performances in both films. Unfortunately, all of those amazing achievements are being overshadowed by his recent arrest.
A judge released Majors without bail at his Saturday night arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court and he is due back in court in May.
Allegedly Majors and his girlfriend were in an altercation over his cell phone while in a taxi returning home from a bar in Brooklyn. The alleged victim claims Majors allegedly grabbed her hand, allegedly slapped her, and allegedly put his hands around her neck and strangled her. After separating for the night, his girlfriend reported the alleged crimes to the police the next morning.
Majors was arrested without incident around 11 am on Saturday near the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
A spokesperson for the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner, Public Information confirmed Majors’ arrest and provided the following statement to the press, “On Saturday, March 25, 2023, at approximately 1114 hours, police responded to a 911 call inside of an apartment… within the confines of the 10 Precinct. A preliminary investigation determined that a 33-year-old male was involved in a domestic dispute with a 30 year-old female. The victim informed police she was assaulted. Officers placed the 33-year-old male into custody without incident. The victim sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was removed to an area hospital in stable condition.”
Representatives for Majors immediately addressed the situation stating, “He has done nothing wrong. We look forward to clearing his name and clearing this up.”
On Sunday Majors’ criminal defense attorney Priya Chaudhry provided the following statement to the press, “Jonathan Majors is completely innocent and is probably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows. We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently. This evidence includes video footage from the vehicle where this episode took place, witness testimony from the driver and others who both saw and heard the episode, and most importantly, two written statements from the woman recanting these allegations. All the evidence proves that Mr. Majors is entirely innocent and did not assault her whatsoever. Unfortunately, this incident came about because this woman was having an emotional crisis, for which she was taken to a hospital yesterday. The NYPD is required to make an arrest in these situations, and this is the only reason Mr. Majors was arrested. We expect these charges to be dropped soon.”
Is there a Majors problem on set?
In light of the actor’s arrest, Twitter came to life with stories about Majors’ behavior on set. Amid the flurry of social media comments, two directors took to Twitter and made disturbing claims, with one going so far as alleging Majors’ “vicious, cruel” behavior.
Rising filmmaker, A.B. Allen (Your Turn, Rough Draft) tweeted an ambiguous post back in February, in which they referred to an actor whom the Internet “has violently fallen head over heels for.”
“There’s a particular actor, relatively new on the scene, who Twitter has violently fallen head over heels for who, in actuality, is a vicious, cruel, abusive human being, both professionally and in his personal life, and every new viral thirst tweet about him drives me insane.”
Allen re-confirmed his allegations in the aftermath of the arrest, this time naming Majors.
“I regret my overly-flippant tone here. I read the words alleged assault, in the tweet, figured we were talking about a shoving match outside of a bar or something, then posted this. Once I read the details, far more brutal than I expected, I wished I had said something else. Everything I’ve known about has not been physical. It’s not a huge leap at all for emotionally violent/professionally abusive people to become physically violent as well, but I was not made aware of it. This is uniquely horrific and very grave.”
The other director is Tim Nicolai, a veteran of Broadway and co-founder of Society Theater. The creative made several serious accusations against the Marvel star, calling him “a sociopath and abuser”:
“I’m just gonna say this about Jonathan Majors and be done with it: folks at Yale and the broader NYC community have known about him for years. He’s a sociopath and abuser and that is how virtually everyone speaks about him. It’s a shame it took this long for him to be reported.
Commentators asked why Nicolai didn’t speak out sooner if he was aware of alleged negative behavior on the actor’s part. He responded by saying that “people have tried” but that ultimately, those trying to legitimize the allegations “needed a victim to come forward.”
Majors has already received backlash from the incident and The U.S. Army has paused its advertising campaign featuring Majors in response to his arrest.
“The U.S. Army is aware of the arrest of Jonathan Majors and we are deeply concerned by the allegations surrounding his arrest,” Army Enterprise Marketing Office public affairs chief Laura DeFrancisco confirmed in a statement. “We recently released two ads in which Mr. Majors appears. While Mr. Majors is innocent until proven guilty, prudence dictates that we pull our ads until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”
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It is unknown at this time whether or not this incident will affect his relationship with Marvel. Majors was first introduced to the MCU in Loki as He Who Remains/The Time Keepers, but we all now know him as Kang The Conqueror from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. He is set to reprise the role in several upcoming films, including Avengers: Secret Wars and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and is rumored to return in season two of Loki, expected out later this year.
Majors has had an extraordinary rise to fame over the past few years, additionally appearing in films such as Da 5 Bloods, The Harder They Fall, and Devotion as well as the wildly popular show Lovecraft Country.
