Jonathan Majors, the “Creed III” actor slated to anchor upcoming Marvel projects, lost his bid to stave off a long-delayed domestic assault trial, in which he is accused of attacking his then-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, in the back of a chauffeured car.
Wearing a light-colored shirt and a tie, Majors appeared via live stream in Manhattan Criminal Court on Wednesday morning, where Judge Michael Gaffey rejected a motion asking the case be dismissed because of evidence discrepancies and what his lawyers called the “lack of a speedy trial.”
Jonathan Majors is seen in court during a hearing in his domestic violence case on Tuesday, June 20, 2023, in New York. Steven Hirsch/Associated Press file
Instead, his team and prosecutors went into the judge’s chambers for about 10 minutes and emerged with plans to start the trial on Nov. 29. Majors’s lawyers did not respond to questions outside the courtroom after the hearing.
If convicted, Majors could face up to a year in jail. His legal team has maintained that the actor is not only innocent but was also assaulted by Jabbari during the back-seat dispute.
The district attorney’s office has discounted that notion and has said that it has no plans to prosecute Jabbari over the March incident, despite unconfirmed reports in multiple news outlets that she faces possible arrest.
The trial was originally set for Aug. 3 but was pushed back three times after the parties asked for more time.
Majors was at an apex of his career at the time of his arrest: fresh off his role in the hit film “Creed III,” tapped as Marvel’s next supervillain and a co-presenter at the Academy Awards ceremony two weeks before the alleged assault.
He and Jabbari were taking a car service back to his home in Manhattan early Saturday, March 25 when an argument broke out. According to a filing by prosecutors this month, Jabbari grabbed her boyfriend’s phone after spotting a text message from someone else: “Wish I was kissing you right now.”
As Jabbari tried to read who sent the text, prosecutors allege, Majors pried her finger off the phone with enough force to fracture it, twisted her arm, and struck her in the ear, leaving a cut. When Jabbari grabbed the phone and tried to exit the car, prosecutors wrote, “The defendant grabbed her, picked her up, and threw her back inside.”
New York police said in a subsequent statement that Jabbari “sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was removed to a hospital in stable condition.” They arrested Majors several hours after the incident. In addition to misdemeanor assault, aggravated harassment, attempted assault, and harassment, he initially faced a charge of strangulation, which was later dropped. Jabbari was granted a temporary protection order against Majors.
Majors’s attorney Priya Chaudhry has claimed from the outset that he was actually Jabbari’s victim. In a domestic incident report Majors filed with police in June, he told police that Jabbari was “drunk and hysterical” during the car ride, slapping and scratching him hard enough to draw blood, according to a report from Insider.
The actor acknowledged preventing Jabbari from leaving the vehicle but said in his report: “I was worried she would be hurt by traffic. So I physically picked her up and put her in the car.”
As the district attorney’s office prepared its case against Majors last month, prosecutors informed Jabbari that they would not pursue any domestic violence charges against her if police arrested her, according to a court filing. Prosecutors also said defense lawyers leaked and misrepresented court evidence in the Majors case and at one point attempted to have the police create a “wanted flier” with Jabbari’s photo.
Majors has remained largely out of the public eye since his arrest, prompting new allegations and leaving a cloud hanging over his career.
His management company and his public relations firm dropped him as a client shortly after his arrest, according to Deadline. In June, Rolling Stone published a story in which multiple unnamed sources alleged that Majors has a history of abusive behavior in his professional and personal life. An attorney for Majors vehemently denied the story, saying the magazine “embarked on a mission to dig up dirt on Jonathan Majors in order to falsely paint him as a violent and abusive Black man.”
The actor is slated to star in at least three upcoming Marvel projects as the supervillain Kang. Despite speculation that Marvel would drop Majors, he still appeared in promotional material earlier this month, including in a trailer for Season 2 of the Disney Plus series “Loki.”
Samantha Chery contributed to this report.
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