Up until 2023, Jonathan Majors had steadily climbed the ranks of Hollywood through a series of standout performances. He earned critical acclaim for his roles in The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and gained further recognition in HBO’s horror drama Lovecraft Country, which even earned him an Emmy nomination. His rising star reached new heights when he stepped into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as ‘Kang the Conqueror’ in Ant-Man and the Wasp. But in 2023, everything changed.
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Majors found himself at the center of legal and public controversy after cops arrested him on charges of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari. He was found guilty of both assault and harassment in 2023. He is currently serving a 52-week in-person domestic violence intervention program. Apart from this, there don’t seem to have been many consequences for the actor- except perhaps losing a few friends.
He is seemingly on a comeback campaign now and is on a promotional tour for his new film Magazine Dreams. Part of which involved making an appearance on Cam Newton’s YouTube show. When asked whether he suffered a fallout from his friendships “through the whole transition of public misfortune,” Majors admitted:
“My schoolmates…So that hurt. I spent three years with ya’ll and now I’m hearing things I’ve never heard before. I don’t want to hold onto it but, disclaimer, how ever you feel or felt about me in the past or even currently, it is valid. Everyone has their experience. I’m not in your experience. That’s the hard part, trying to negotiate what you think is valid and what I think is valid. I got no hard feeling but were my feelings hurt-sure. We are supposed to be buddies.”
According to him, his classmates from Yale School of Drama cut him off but also said things behind his back.
As for Hollywood? Jonathan never had many close friends in the industry to begin with. He saw that world primarily through a professional lens—driven by business, not personal bonds. To him, most of those relationships were strictly work-based: co-stars, colleagues, contacts.
Still, a few people stood by him, like Michael B. Jordan and David Oyelowo—people Majors described as “true friends,” ones who wanted to remain part of his life regardless of what he did.
According to him, the people who stuck around were the real ones, while those who left were “never my friends to begin with.”
Jabbari also filed a civil case for defamation and patterns of pervasive domestic abuse against Majors. The attorneys jointly agreed to dismiss the claims against Majors with prejudice, permanently barring them from filing again. It means they likely reached an out-of-court monetary settlement.
In the aftermath of his legal troubles, production houses dropped him from all the upcoming projects, and Marvel cut ties with him. However, with this new film and his engagement to actress Meagan Good, it seems life is on the up for him again.
