New developments continue to unfold amid Jonathan Majors’s assault and harassment charges. On Saturday, March 25, the “Creed III” actor was arrested in New York City following an alleged domestic dispute. A statement from the Manhattan District Attorney sent to POPSUGAR on March 28 revealed that the actor was arraigned the following day on misdemeanor charges including assault and aggravated harassment of an unnamed woman.
In another statement sent to POPSUGAR on the same day, Majors’s attorney Priya Chaudhry alleged that the actor was the one who had placed the 911 call that led to his arrest. “To set the record straight: As confirmed by one of the woman’s own written statements disavowing her allegations, it is Mr. Majors who called 911 due to concern for her mental health,” Chaudhry wrote.
Majors denies all wrongdoing, per Chaudhry. In addition to laying out the charges, the Manhattan DA’s office stated that an NYC judge had released Majors from custody on his own recognizance and granted him a limited order of protection, per Variety. According to the DA, a judge granted Majors’s accuser a full temporary order of protection on April 27.
On May 9, Majors appeared in court virtually for a status conference in connection with his charges, during which the DA introduced new details in the complaint that indicate the unnamed woman allegedly experienced another injury during the dispute, as well as that she claimed to have been pushed into a car by Majors. The actor was also ordered by the judge to continue to abide by the full stay-away order of protection in place, which includes making no contact with the unnamed woman.
In a statement sent to POPSUGAR following the court hearing, Chaudhry maintained Majors’s innocence and claimed to have “irrefutable evidence that the woman is lying, including video proof showing nothing happened.” Chaudhry and her team previously released video and texts between the unnamed woman and Majors, per The Hollywood Reporter.
His attorney’s statement also reads, “This is a witch hunt against Jonathan Majors, driven by baseless claims. Instead of dismissing the allegations in the face of the woman’s clear lies, the DA has adjusted the charges to match the woman’s new lies. To be clear, there are no new charges against Mr. Majors.” Later in the statement, she added, “The criminal justice system is saturated with explicit and implicit bias . . . This glaring double standard between the treatment of Jonathan Majors, a Black man weighing 200 lbs., and his accuser, highlights the racial bias that permeates the criminal justice system.”
Chaudhry had previously issued a statement to POPSUGAR on March 25 that claimed that “Majors is completely innocent and is provably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows.” She added, “We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently.”
Chaudhry also detailed the alleged evidence, which she said, at the time, included video footage from the site of the reported incident, testimony from eyewitnesses, and two written statements from the woman recanting the allegations. “All the evidence proves that Mr. Majors is entirely innocent and did not assault her whatsoever,” she claimed in her statement, adding that she believes the charges will soon be dropped and arrests must be made in cases of this nature. “This is the only reason Mr. Majors was arrested,” she said.
Chaudhry’s new May statement further adds, “We have obtained even more video evidence of his innocence, but we are hesitant to share it, for fear the DA will tip the woman off to change her story again.”
How Have the Allegations Affected Majors’s Career?
Majors’s busy acting career has come to a halt in light of his allegations. According to an April 17 report from Deadline, he’s since been dropped by talent manager Entertainment 360, per several sources. PR firm The Lede Company, which represented Majors, also initiated a break from the actor. Deadline then noted that Majors and fashion house Valentino “mutually agreed” that the actor wouldn’t attend this year’s Met Gala as one of its guests.
On April 18, Deadline confirmed that Majors is no longer starring in “The Man in My Basement,” an adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel of the same name, and revealed he has also been removed from consideration for an unannounced Otis Redding biopic. Additionally, an ad campaign for the Texas Rangers starring Majors, which was set to air on April 21, was also reportedly pulled at the time.
Currently, Majors is still set to star in Marvel’s 2025 film “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” as Kang the Conquerer and in a bodybuilding drama titled “Magazine Dreams” later this year. He’s also expected to appear in “Loki” season two, as he’s already finished filming.
In the wake of his arrest, the US Army announced that it pulled its “Be All You Can Be” ad campaign featuring Majors. “The U.S. Army is aware of the arrest of Jonathan Majors and we are deeply concerned by the allegations surrounding his arrest,” Laura DeFrancisco, public affairs chief for the Army Enterprise Marketing Office, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “While Mr. Majors is innocent until proven guilty, prudence dictates that we pull our ads until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”
According to the Associated Press, the recruiting ads were set to run again during the NCAA’s Final Four basketball games, leaving the Army to repurpose the spots with existing and unused footage that didn’t include Majors. “We are absolutely able to utilize a majority of what we have invested,” Alex Fink, head of Army marketing, told the outlet in late March. “We think that we’ll have some brand new creative ads in time for the Women’s Final Four on Friday. . . . [W]e have a ton of content to go back to, to create basically new commercials . . . if we need to. The campaign is full steam ahead.”
