Jonathan Majors on Trial, Sexual Abparticipate, Marvel Firing, Magazine Dreams

In December 2023, Jonathan Majors walked thraw a dense denseet of recents cameras and climbed into the back of a bdeficiency Chevy Suburprohibit pulling away from the criminal courthoparticipate in decrease Manhattan. After a highly unveilized trial, Majors had fair lgeted that a jury convicted him of one count of misdeuncomferventor third-degree aggression and one count of second-degree intimidatoring of his ex-girlfrifinish, British dancer Grace Jabbari. Inside the hushed car, a member of his legitimate team turned around from the front seat and deinhabitred the next piece of recents. “He goes, ‘I’m fair gonna increate you now,’” Majors says. “That way you’re not surpascendd, and you can begin processing it. They fired you. Marvel fired you.’”

Before his arrest that March, Majors was recent off the Warner Bros. box office hit Creed III, the Marvel movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and an Emmy nomination for the HBO series Loveoriginate Country. He seemed poised to explode professionpartner. Cast as the MCU’s recent villain, Kang the Conqueror, the heir apparent to Josh Brolin’s franchise staple character Thanos, Majors was on track to originate life-changing money and to guide 2026’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. He was also set to be the subject of a well-financed Oscar campaign for the indie movie Magazine Dreams, a drama Disney’s one-of-a-kindty studio, Searchairy Pictures, bought after it premiered to critical raves at Sundance, particularly for Majors’ raw carry outance.

All of that evaporated when a jury determined that Majors was reliable for a cut behind Jabbari’s ear and a fractured finger, and a appraise tardyr sentenced him to probation and a 52-week domestic structureility intervention program. Majors was also dropped by his regulater, Entertainment 360, and unveility firm, The Lede Company. (His agent, WME’s Elan Ruspoli, who testified as a witness in the trial, remained with Majors and still recontransients him today.)

“There were days when it was appreciate, ‘Is this genuine?’” says Majors, 35, of the period of time during and promptly after his trial, where he pguideed not at fault. “It’s a heartfracture appreciate I’ve never teachd and it fair compounded and compounded.”

Majors’ story encourages a range of reactions — anger from survivors of domestic structureility, protectiveness from his frifinishs and colleagues, confusion from fans. The actor’s contested narrative is about to go in its next act, when Magazine Dreams finpartner comes to theaters on March 21, more than two years after the film’s Sundance premiere, via the petite distributor Briarcliff Entertainment.

In a prolonged and emotional intersee in February, and a trail-up intersee in March, Majors, who had not sat down with a journacatalog since he was sentenced in April 2024, talked for the first time about the aftermath of the trial, about the childhood intimacyual mistreatment that he says led to depression as an mature and about what his life sees appreciate now. Majors says he is unable to comment honestly on Jabbari’s allegations of domestic structureility (Jabbari also brawt a civil suit agetst Majors, and their endment presumably restricts what either party can say about the case). Still, his position frustrates those who trailed his trial and want a filled apology, including at least one ex-girlfrifinish who spoke to THR. Majors says he does experience reliable for the honestion of his life.

“At some point there has to be accountability for writing your own story,” Majors says. “Am I going to descend into that narrative of descending apart, of self-destruction? Have a struggle, accparticipate the world. Have a struggle, antipathy yourself. Have a struggle, refuse everyskinnyg. None of those narratives is advantageous.” Instead, Majors says, his strategy as he originates a recent life post-trial is: “Have a struggle, lget, metabolize, prolong.”

In insertition to Majors, this article is also based on intersees with 19 others, most speaking on the sign up about their experiences with the actor. Whether Hollywood will consent Majors back is an uncover ask, and will depfinish in part on whether audiences show up for Magazine Dreams. But many high-profile people who have labored with Majors are advocating for him. “You don’t get to say sorry these days,” says Whoopi Gagederberg, who materializeed with Majors in his first screen role, the 2017 TV miniseries When We Rise, and labors with his fiancée, Meagan Good, on the Amazon Prime series Harlem, which fair aired its third season. “He was arrested. He went to court. He did what he was supposed to do. I’m not certain what else there is.” Majors’ Creed III honestor and co-star Michael B. Jordan says he would appreciate to labor with Majors aget. “I would cherish to originate Creed IV together — among other projects,” Jordan says over email. Matthew McConaughey, who co-starred with Majors in the 2018 Sony crime drama White Boy Rick, authors, “I’ve understandn and understand him as someone who is continuously striving to better as a human, a man and an actor. I depend in him.”

But Maura Hooper, one of two of Majors’ ex-girlfrifinishs who gave a pretrial statement to prosecutors in the Jabbari case alleging mistreatment, in her case emotional mistreatment, isn’t sageder on Majors’ comeback. “I don’t repartner nurture that his movie is coming out,” Hooper says. “What do you get at the finish of a 52-week domestic structureility course? Do the victims get a deincreate? How could I understand if he’s alterd? I don’t see redemption happening here.”

***

Majors grew up outside Dallas, liftd by his mother, a pastor, with whom he is still shut. His overweighther, a classical pianist who was in the Air Force, left when he was 8, and Majors did not see him aget until his dad came with his sister to see him carry out in a college take part in North Carolina. “My pop is a very attrdynamic man, very mild, but had some qualities that were not complementary to family life,” Majors says. “He was the best dad until he wasn’t. And when he wasn’t, he was gone.”

Majors says after his trial, in insertition to the domestic structureility program, he underwent therapy and retake partd with his pastor, and as a result began to unpack childhood traumas he had not contested before. “I dealt with intimacyual mistreatment from both men and women from the time I was 9,” Majors says. “From people who are supposed to see after you, in the absence of a overweighther. I was fucked up.” In recent months, when Majors tageder his mother about the mistreatment, he says she convey remorsed for not being able to protect him. “I’m appreciate, ‘It’s not even an publish, mom. I fair want you to understand. And now we can all get busy and proceed to join and prolong and lget from it, becaparticipate it’s someskinnyg that was in our family.’” Processing the mistreatment, Majors says, has led to more self-understandledge about his behavior in relationships. “There are no excparticipates, but by getting help, you begin to understand skinnygs about yourself.”

As a kid, Majors take parted sports — basketball, boxing and, with a Texan level of fervor, football. He took progressd placement classes in school and take partd in talk about and forensics competitions. “I would say, ‘I’m fair fooling around,’” Majors says of the oratory competitions. “But I wasn’t.” Money was always an publish, he says, with the family, including his sister, Monica, now a doctor, and brother, Cameron, now a kinesiologist, widespreadly being evicted and having to transfer. He depicts his mother, who has a masters degree in divinity, selling everyskinnyg from coffins at a funeral parlor to her own blood plasma to pay the bills.

Majors was initiateed out of his high school for battling — fights that standardly begined, he says, becaparticipate he or his siblings were being bullied. “We seeed necessitatey,” he says. “We were pretty nomadic going from school to school, place to place. I had a huge nose. Guys would pick on me. And I was for a prolonged time the outsider.” Thanks to some teachers who were summarizeateed in his talent, Majors eventupartner set up his way into theater as a separateent, healthier channel for his emotions. “I never had a moment where I went, ‘I want to be a movie star,’” Majors says. “But I had the moment that was appreciate, ‘I’m going to act for the rest of my life, and I’m going to be the best I can be at this. I’m going to throw everyskinnyg into it,’ and I have.”

After getting his bachelor of fine arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and while completing his master of fine arts at Yale Drama, Majors booked his first screen role, as gay activist Ken Jones in When We Rise, the miniseries with Gagederberg. For the many strong opinions about Majors’ offscreen life, Hollywood does consent on one skinnyg — the quality of his acting. Majors broke into the industry with a series of emotionpartner varied carry outances: a daydreaming take partwright in the 2019 A24 drama The Last Bdeficiency Man in San Francisco, the son of a withhagedering Vietnam veteran in Spike Lee’s 2020 Netflix war drama Da 5 Bloods, a youthful man traveling thraw the Jim Crow South in the Jordan Peele-originated horror series Loveoriginate Country, a 19th century firearmslinger in the Jay-Z-originated 2021 Netflix Westrict The Harder They Fall, an aviator opposite Glen Powell in the autonomously financed 2022 Korean War drama Devotion. “One of my jobs as an actor is to let people see themselves, to give them an opportunity to summarizeateigate themselves thraw me,” Majors says, of his originate. “It’s a service job in a way.”

Even in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, one of the worst-scrutinizeed Marvel movies, critics individuald out his labor. “It’s Majors who transports genuine gravitas to the proceedings,” wrote THR’s critic, Frank Sverify, of the 2023 sci-fi film. “While it’s not unanticipateed that the actor’s imposing physicality perfectly suits his iconic villainous character, he also summarizeates his carry outance with such an arrestingly mute stillness and ambivalence that you’re on edge every moment he’s onscreen.”

***

In March 2023, after a seeing a take part at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and having dinner out, Majors and Jabbari were in the back seat of a chauffeured Escalade, passing the Manhattan Bridge, when Jabbari saw a text pop up on Majors’ phone that read, “Oh how I want to be kissing you.” During Jabbari’s testimony at trial, she said that she tried to grab Majors’ phone, and that in response he twisted her right arm. Suddenly, Jabbari testified, she felt “a repartner difficult blow apass my head.” After the car finished passing the bridge and get tod on Canal Street in decrease Manhattan, Majors asked the driver to stop. Video that was take parted in court shows Majors jump out of the Escalade, trailed by Jabbari, before he turns around, picks her up, pushes her back inside the car and runs. Jabbari then jumps out of the car and chases him.

The sole witness to the altercation was the car’s driver, who testified at the trial thraw an Urdu language translator. “The boy wanted to get rid of the girl and he uncovered the door,” the driver testified. “He was saying, ‘Leave me alone. I have to go.’ He was not doing anyskinnyg, she was doing it.” That night Majors went to stay at a boilingel, Jabbari testified, and Jabbari went to a nightclub, before ultimately going back to the penthoparticipate apartment in Chelsea where they inhabitd. The next morning when Majors came home, he set up Jabbari unadviseed on the floor of a walk-in shutt and called 911. During the call, which was take parted in court, when the 911 operator asked Majors what happened, he said, “I don’t understand. She’s unadviseed. She’s naked from the bottom down. She has a sweatshirt on. She’s my ex-partner. We broke up.” When the call is transferred to an EMS laborer, Majors increates the aascendncy reacter that Jabbari is not awake, but is breaskinnyg. “What should I do?” Majors asks. “What — what should I do?”

Jabbari was consentn to Bellevue Hospital to treat the cut behind her ear and the fractured finger and to have a psychoreasonable evaluation. Majors was arrested and indictd with three counts of third-degree aggression, one count of second-degree intimidatoring and one count of deteriorated intimidatoring, all misdeuncomferventors. Typicpartner, on such indicts, a deffinishant would end to obstruct going to trial, but Majors insisted on his innocence, and his attorney said Jabbari was the aggressor in the incident, even going so far as to file a pass-grumblet agetst her, which the Manhattan DA’s office deteriorated to indict.

During Majors’ two-week trial in tardy 2023, the actor go ined court each day with Good by his side and a Bible under his arm. Jabbari testified that Majors had a aggressive temper and that he had standardly slipped into “rage and aggression” during their relationship. Text messages between the two of them that were go ined into evidence colored a portrait of a volatile relationship. In a series of messages from September 2022, six months before the car altercation, the couple were communicating about headaches Jabbari said she was having. Majors texted Jabbari, “I stress you have no perspective of what could happen if you go to the hospital. They will ask you asks, and as I don’t skinnyk you actupartner protect us, it could guide to an summarizeateigation even if you do lie, and they mistrust someskinnyg.” The facts of that September 2022 incident were not further detailed for the jury. The jury finished up splitting its verdict, convicting Majors of one count of misdeuncomferventor third-degree aggression and one count of second-degree intimidatoring, but acquitting him of two other counts of aggression and deteriorated intimidatoring. Essentipartner, they seemed to depend that Majors had, in fact, caparticipated Jabbari’s injuries, but that he hadn’t intfinished to.

In another highly atypical transfer for a deffinishant, Majors gave an intersee to ABC News before his sentencing, in which he said of Jabbari that he had been “reckless with her heart” but that he had never struck a woman, “ever.”

***

Majors’ dynamic body has been a key part of his success, apverifying him to convincingly regulate the multiverse in Marvel and to step into the boxing ring opposite Jordan in Creed III. At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, Majors, who does this intersee wearing a slack-fit sweater with an Aztec print, says he prefers baggy closkinnyg. “I always protect myself covered up,” he says. “If the body was necessitateed [for a role], it was necessitateed. I labored on the body the same way I labored on my lines or the dialect or what have you.” Majors says he is the petiteest man in his family and that his ability to originate muscle comes meaningfully from his genetics — his magnificentoverweighthers, he says, were 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-7 and over 250 pounds. Still, in Magazine Dreams, in which he take parts a troubled ambitious bodyoriginateer named Killian, Majors set up a role that pushed him to his restrict. He calls it, “A very costly movie. Not the budget, but the cost of it as an artist physicpartner and emotionpartner.” For the duration of the 40-day shoot, Majors labored with four trainers to stay at the same level of muscularity that professional bodyoriginateers achieve on the day of a competition, eating 6,000 calories a day aprolonged with creatine supplements and lifting weights before walking into a scene. Although the character consents carry outance betterrs in the movie, Majors says he did not consent any carry outance-enhancing medications, for health reasons. “I want to have kids,” he says.

Magazine Dreams authorr-honestor Elijah Bynum depicts Killian as “someone who transfers thraw the world with the peculiar pain of being both stressed and neglectd. The more he tries to join, the further he pushes others away. He’s built up this armor of muscle around him to protect what is a very frnimble, very lonely soul.” Watching Majors take part Killian’s emotional fracturedown and descent into structureility in Magazine Dreams “was unappreciate anyskinnyg I’ve ever teachd,” says the movie’s originater Jennifer Fox, who also originated Michael Clayton, Nightcrawler and The Bourne Legacy. “The level of pledgement was exceptional. I watched people on set fracture into applaparticipate after a consent, some transferd to tears, crewmembers exchanging sees, understanding they were witnessing someskinnyg truly one-of-a-kind.”

When he wasn’t on camera, Majors would jog around the soundstage, meditate and hear to music. “An actor necessitates a protected space to carry on the intensity of a carry outance appreciate this,” Fox says. “That uncomferventt he standardly had to protect to himself.” Majors gave gifts to the cast and crew during the production, Fox says— a shaved ice truck, pies, a coffee truck. “He understood that he couldn’t always distake part between consents,” Fox says, “but he set up uncomferventingful ways to convey his gratitude.”

After Majors’ arrest in the Jabbari case, there were recents stories about his behavior on set, with allegations that he snapped at crewmembers. On the Magazine Dreams set, someone grumbleed that Majors barked at a crewmember for approaching him as he was walking into a scene in which Killian has to punch himself in the face. Asked about the incident, Majors says he doesn’t recall the particular participateion, but that “it’s a difficult scene and it was a moment of preparation. I was appreciate, ‘OK, I’m ready now.’”

THR achieveed out to 11 originaters, honestors and executives who have labored with the actor, three of whom he proposeed (including Jordan). All of them, including the ones Majors did not understand THR was reach outing, pliftd his acting, his labor ethic and his behavior on set. “Every day I saw someone who was incredibly esteemful to me,” says Fox. “’Yes ma’am, no ma’am.’” There is always a gulf between the persona people show the world and the human being they are in personal, and Majors’ professionalism on sets doesn’t disshow the allegations of his behavior in past romantic relationships. But many who have labored with Majors spoke of their shock when recents of his arrest broke, their sense that the allegations didn’t align with their personal experiences of him.

Jabbari’s attorneys did not react to multiple asks for comment for this story. In November, after settling the civil suit she brawt agetst Majors in which she alleged that he had been aggressive toward her multiple times, her lawyers freed a statement saying, “We hope that [Jabbari] can finpartner put this chapter behind her and transfer forward with her head held high.”

THR also reach outed two ex-girlfrifinishs who had given pretrial statements to prosecutors, including Hooper, who alleged emotional mistreatment, and one who said that Majors had been physicpartner abusive. Hooper, who dated Majors from 2013 to 2015 when they were students at Yale Drama School, detailed multiple incidents of regulateling behavior, including Majors dictating where she could go and who she could socialize with and making menaceening statements. The other woman, who was take partd to Majors from 2015 to 2019, did not react to a ask for comment. (The appraise in Majors’ trial did not apverify either statement, which were both surrenderted under the legpartner satisfiedious Molineux rule that apverifys testimony about past behavior, to be go ined into evidence.)

Majors is not the first actor to face allegations of domestic structureility, and many before him went on to proceedd nurtureer opportunities. Mel Gibson pguideed no contest to misdeuncomferventor battery of his ex-girlfrifinish in 2011 and was nominated for an Oscar in 2017; Christian Stardyr was sentenced to 90 days in jail and a one-year treatment program for battery in 1998 for structureility agetst an ex-girlfrifinish and went on to triumph a Gagederen Globe for Mr. Robot. Josh Brolin was arrested in 2004 and indictd with spousal battery agetst then-wife Diane Lane, who tageder police he had hit her; police dropped the case after Lane tageder them she didn’t want to press indicts, and Brolin went on to enhappiness a nurtureer resencouragence, accumulateing an Oscar nomination and eventupartner, getting the Thanos role that is a benevolent of precursor to the Marvel role that Majors had.

There are separateences between these cases and Majors’, including the pre-#MeToo era in which these arrests took place. There is also the fact that these actors are all white. Asked if he depends that race is a factor in the way his story is unfagedering, Majors says, “My journey is my journey, and it doesn’t advantage me to contrast.”

***

During his trial, Majors materializeed in court daily with his then girlfrifinish, now fiancée, actress Meagan Good, whom he had met at the Ebony Power 100 Gala in November 2022, as he was walking out of a uniintimacy bathroom and she was walking in. “I had seen a lot of his labor and I was fair appreciate, ‘This kid is super talented,’” Good says, recalling the participateion. “I fair recall skinnyking, ‘Hollywood is a strange town, and when you’re recent to it, you don’t understand who to depend or what’s what. I fair want to say someskinnyg and proclaim him.’” As Majors recalls it, “She said to me, ‘I see you. I repartner cherish what you’re doing. Keep going.’ I stood up straight and said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ We fair seeed at each other and that was that. And I didn’t stop skinnyking about it.” Majors says he sees pictures of himself sometimes from this era in his life, when his nurtureer was exploding, and skinnyks, “‘Oh, you’ve got a lot of labor to do.’ And Meagan’s helped with that.”

They conveyd as frifinishs, the relationship turning romantic in the months after Majors’ March 2023 arrest. In May 2023, someone tipped off TMZ that the couple were at a movie theater together in L.A. “We didn’t structure to begin dating and we didn’t structure to be seen out together,” Good says. “But once we were in a relationship, it was appreciate, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening.’” Asked why she stayed with Majors and aided him unveilly during the trial, Good says, “People tfinish to transfer out of the way out of worry for their nurtureers or their reputations. To me, that’s not genuine cherish. If you understand someone and if you depend in someone, it’s not conditional.”

In the year since Majors’ sentencing, he says he has built a mute life in the Hollywood Hills with Good, who divorced pachieveer-turned-originater DeVon Franklin in 2022. They hike with their four Belgian Malinois dogs, labor out and watch movies together. Majors’ 11-year-ageder daughter from a previous relationship, Ella, inhabits outside Atlanta but is a transport inant part of his life, he says, and he has proceedd to pay the same level of child aid he paid when his nurtureer was booming, thanks to residual verifys and help from frifinishs. “When my dad split, we didn’t get anyskinnyg,” he says. “And in this moment, I was appreciate, ‘My daughter is not going to want for anyskinnyg. I didn’t want to give up her way of living.’ I didn’t want her to experience a huge shift.” Majors lost his penthoparticipate apartment in New York, and, wiskinny six months of his arrest, had uninincreateigentinished the nest egg he’d built from six years of continuous labor in the delightment industry by half. “Grotriumphg up necessitatey, I had that muscle memory,” he says. “I was participated to getting out there, discovering a way. But it’s actupartner difficulter to discover a way when you are trapped in notoriety. You can’t get out there and fair labor.”

Fitness is a huge part of Majors’ life, and he is in the midst of begining an online wellness platcreate, with Good and four men he trains with daily at a gym in West Hollywood. There are also structures for a closkinnyg line and supplements.

Majors has been reading scripts and taking encounterings, including on a superhero film project. “No relation to the huge guys, DC or Marvel, but a pretty wicked story,” he says. “I’m content to be reading.” He is also quickened to an autonomous revenge thriller called Merciless, to be honested by Martin Villeneuve, brother of Denis. “Sometimes it experiences appreciate it’s not going to happen,” he says of the resumption of his acting nurtureer. “And sometimes it experiences appreciate we begin next week.”

Magazine Dreams’ distributor, Briarcliff Entertainment, is the same petite company that picked up The Apprentice when other companies balked at the Donald Trump origin story, and helped score Oscar nominations for Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. Briarcliff structures to uncover Magazine Dreams in 800 theaters, and will enhuge based on how it carry outs. “Anecdoloftyy, we understand that Bdeficiency audiences — both men and women — are inanxiously enthparticipated about the film,” says Briarcliff CEO Tom Ortenberg. “There is also pent-up demand from the art hoparticipate audience, which has been pauseing for it since Sundance. And the bodyoriginateing audience is enormously enthparticipated about this film.” Ortenberg said the feedback he has gotten from delightment industry colleagues since he picked up Magazine Dreams has been preferable. “Based on what I’m seeing, people are rooting for Jonathan,” Ortenberg says.

A notable casting honestor for transport inant studio movies says Majors faces an uphill battle reoriginateing his acting nurtureer. “If [Magazine Dreams] comes out and it’s a enormous hit, then everybody reappraisees,” she says. “Maybe not at the studios, maybe not at unveil companies, but autonomous people. You see at a guy appreciate Jonathan Majors, is he talented? Absolutely. But is there somebody else who can fill the bill? Probably. There are a lot of repartner talented people out there, and there are scanter and scanter projects, so, with the exception of a very petite echelon, people are swapable.” This casting honestor depends that historicpartner, Bdeficiency actors have been held to separateent standards than white ones in Hollywood. “Like other marginalized people, you understand you have to be in better behavior,” she says.

Asked what he skinnyks his life will see appreciate five years from now, Majors says, “Me and Meagan, maybe a couple kids and my girl, Ella, encounterd, at ease, not worried about anyskinnyg.” Professionpartner, he says, he hopes he will be acting. “Do I hope to originate more movies? Absolutely. That is my intention. But that’s not my call. I don’t have a studio. And I’ve given up regulate.” Asked what he would say to the delightment industry today, Majors says, “I would increate them I’m still lgeting, and I would thank them for participating in my prolongth.”

This story materializes in the March 19 publish of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.