Hollywood movie star and media darling Jonathan Majors was arrested for allegedly slapping and strangling his girlfriend after she confronted him over texting another woman. His defense lawyers say evidence surrounding the incident will vindicate his client.
However, a former classmate and co-workers say the violent behavior that the “Creed” actor is accused of displaying aligns with their memory of him in school.
After an altercation with his partner, Majors, 33, was charged with misdemeanor assault, aggravated harassment, attempted assault, and harassment by New York prosecutors on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25. Police have described the incident as a “domestic dispute.”
Later that evening, a judge released the box office heavyweight on bond during an arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.
A publicist for the actor told Variety, “He has done nothing wrong.”
Majors has hired criminal defense lawyer Priya Chaudhry to represent him, and she contends once all the facts come to the surface — all will see he is innocent of the accused crimes.
“Jonathan Majors is completely innocent and is provably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows,” the attorney says in a statement.
Reports say the events were set in motion on the eve before the arrest as Majors and his girlfriend were in a taxi cab leaving a Brooklyn bar when he allegedly received a text message from another woman.
TMZ reports that its police sources say when his girlfriend peeked at the message, Majors pushed her hand away and slapped her, prompting a fight that led to him allegedly placing his hands around her neck.
The two parted ways with Majors spending the night out and not returning to their home.
The next morning the girlfriend reported the alleged assault to law enforcement. TMZ reports that police say she showed evidence that included redness and marks to her face and a cut behind her ear. The girlfriend was later taken in stable condition to a New York City hospital where her injuries were treated.
Majors was arrested at the scene and booked in jail for a few hours. Chaudhry said her office is currently compiling “evidence” to clear her client’s name.
“We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently,” she wrote, adding, “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.”
The lawyer said the reason the woman was taken to the hospital was not that she was assaulted, but because she had an “emotional crisis.”
Chaudhry also states their office has “two written statements” from the girlfriend where she allegedly recants her story.
While his legal team suggests the allegations are incredulous, fellow actor and former Yale classmate Tim Nicolai says Majors has a dark side and considers him a “sociopath.”
In a tweet from his now private Twitter account, Nicolai wrote, “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.”
Nicolai added he and his friends are “close with people” that have been “directly harmed” by Majors but could not persuade them to tell their stories or report him to authorities.
In February, a month before the premiere of his box office hit “Creed,” filmmaker A.B. Allen in a now deleted post, tweeted a blind item about a new actor who is beloved by the public but hides a very sinister side in reality.
He tweeted, “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.”
After news of the recent altercation hit the internet, the post resurfaced and Allen says Majors was the unnamed monster.
Like Nicolai, he refused to go into specifics out of respect for the privacy of others.
“The specifics of what *I* know unfortunately would still expose people who have been hurt and deserve to not become part of some larger media inquiry if they don’t want to,” he tweeted. “So I’m not gonna get into the details. But now y’all know what his ~deal~ is, so.”
He, too, has privatized his account.
This comes at a particularly pivotal point in Majors career. In addition to his appearance in “Creed III” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” he is lauded as a major character in the most recent Marvel Avengers storyline.
Also, he is the star of a critically acclaimed movie titled “Magazine Dreams,” which premiered at Sundance. Now acquired by Searchlight Pictures and scheduled for release on Dec. 8, there is no word on if the studio will pull the film with the brewing controversy.
