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    Jonathan Majors Accused of Assault and Defamation in Lawsuit by Ex-Girlfriend

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    Grace Jabbari alleges several instances of violence by Majors, the former Marvel movie star. Majors’s lawyer said he was preparing a countersuit.The actor Jonathan Majors on Tuesday was accused of assault and defamation in a lawsuit filed by a former girlfriend, Grace Jabbari. The court documents include more details of Mr. Majors’s alleged conduct in the relationship at the heart of the criminal trial that ended in his conviction in December.The civil suit, filed in the Southern District of New York by Ms. Jabbari, a dancer and movement coach who dated Mr. Majors for two years beginning in 2021, accused Mr. Majors of having been violent toward her in New York, Los Angeles and London, including in one instance that left her with a head injury. The filing also accused Mr. Majors of repeatedly making threats to kill her and said he had “consistently engaged in an escalating pattern of abusive behavior towards women since as early as 2013.”On the accusation of defamation, the court documents said that Mr. Majors, 34, a former Marvel movie star, “implemented an extensive media campaign smearing” Ms. Jabbari. He called her “a liar at every turn,” the suit said, “and very specifically claimed that he has never put his hands on a woman, with the goal of convincing the world that Grace is not a victim of domestic abuse.”A lawyer for Mr. Majors, Priya Chaudhry, said she was not surprised by the suit, and that “Mr. Majors is preparing counterclaims against Ms. Jabbari.” News of the lawsuit was first reported by Rolling Stone.Brittany Henderson, a lawyer for Ms. Jabbari, said in a statement that “it takes true bravery to hold someone with this level of power and acclaim accountable.”Ms Henderson added: “We strongly believe that through this action, truth and transparency will bring Grace the justice that she deserves.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jonathan Majors Had History of Abuse in Relationships, Women Say

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      The actor denied physical abuse. Separately, he said he wasn’t told of accusations of misbehavior on the set of “Lovecraft Country.”Since the actor Jonathan Majors was found guilty in December of assaulting and harassing a girlfriend, he has maintained his innocence and his hope of reviving a once-skyrocketing career that disintegrated in the wake of his conviction. In a televised interview last month, he said that he had “never struck a woman.”But in pretrial statements to the prosecution in that assault case and, separately, in interviews with The New York Times, another former girlfriend, Emma Duncan, accused him of emotionally and physically abusing her — choking her, throwing her around and bruising her. A third, Maura Hooper, also said that he had emotionally abused her.Speaking publicly for the first time, Ms. Duncan and Ms. Hooper, actresses who dated Mr. Majors before he shot to fame as the supervillain Kang in Marvel projects, described him as a controlling, threatening figure who isolated them from friends and career pursuits. “You lose your sense of worth,” Ms. Duncan said.And in interviews with former colleagues, The Times found that Mr. Majors had a history of volatility on the set of the HBO series “Lovecraft Country” that included confrontations with female co-workers that led them to complain to the network.On Thursday afternoon, a lawyer for Mr. Majors, Priya Chaudhry, said that Mr. Majors had not physically abused Ms. Duncan. She described the relationships with both women as “toxic” and said that Mr. Majors was taking responsibility for his role in them. She added that “countless” women in the entertainment industry “can attest to his professionalism.”This article is based on interviews with 20 people, including some who requested anonymity for fear of career repercussions, and on statements submitted to the prosecution in the December case, in which Mr. Majors was found guilty of harassment and misdemeanor assault of Grace Jabbari, a former girlfriend. He is scheduled to be sentenced in April, though his lawyers asked on Tuesday that the judge throw out the jury’s guilty verdict.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jonathan Majors Says He Was ‘Shocked’ by Assault Conviction

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      Mr. Majors spoke on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” his first interview since being convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment for attacking his girlfriend in a car.Jonathan Majors, an ascending Hollywood star whose career was upended when he was found guilty last month of assault and harassment for attacking his girlfriend, said in an interview broadcast on Monday that he was “absolutely shocked” by the verdict.In the interview, portions of which were shown on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Mr. Majors, 34, said that the episode had been “very hard” and “confusing in many ways.”“I’m standing there and the verdict comes down. I say, ‘How is that possible based off the evidence, based off the prosecution’s evidence, let alone our evidence? How is that possible?’” he told Linsey Davis of ABC News.A six-person jury in Manhattan convicted Mr. Majors last month on misdemeanor assault and harassment charges for an altercation with Grace Jabbari, who was then his girlfriend, as they rode in a hired S.U.V. in March.Shortly after the verdict was announced, Marvel Studios parted ways with the actor, clouding the prospects of his once promising acting career. Marvel Studios had previously intended to build several films around the character Mr. Majors played in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” (Both Marvel and ABC, which ran the interview, are owned by Disney.)Mr. Majors’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 6.During a whirlwind two-week trial, the courtroom heard Ms. Jabbari describe the altercation that left her ear bloody and finger fractured. She said that Mr. Majors had received a flirty text from another woman, and that she had grabbed his phone out of his hand. First, she said, he tried to pry her fingers away; then he twisted her hand and her arm.“Next,” she said, “I felt like a really hard blow across my head.”Eventually, she said, Mr. Majors asked the driver to stop the vehicle. Video that jurors watched showed Mr. Majors jumping out, followed by Ms. Jabbari. He turned around, picked her up and placed her back in the car, appearing to push her back in when she tried to get out.Mr. Majors did not testify during the trial. But in the interview broadcast on Monday, he continued to dispute Ms. Jabbari’s account of the altercation and said that he did not know how she suffered the cut behind her ear and fractured finger.“I wish to God I knew,” he said.In a statement, Brittany Henderson, a lawyer for Ms. Jabbari, said that Mr. Majors “continues to take no accountability for his actions.”“His denigration of our jury system is not dissimilar from the above-the-law attitude that he has maintained throughout this legal process,” Ms. Henderson said in the statement. “The timing of these new statements demonstrates a clear lack of remorse for the actions for which he was found guilty and should make the sentencing decisions fairly easy for the Court.”Mr. Majors first gained attention in 2019 with the independent film “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” and quickly expanded into blockbuster movies, delivering acclaimed performances in “Creed III” and “Quantumania.” He also starred in “Magazine Dreams,” about a troubled aspiring bodybuilder — a film acquired by Searchlight Pictures, a Disney subsidiary. But the movie, originally scheduled to be released this fall, was removed from the studio’s calendar last year amid the actor’s legal troubles.Asked if he thinks he will work again in Hollywood, Mr. Majors said, “Heck yeah, I do. I pray I do,” in the interview. “But it’s God’s plan and God’s timing.” More