Thu. Sep 19th, 2024
Occasional Digest - a story for you

Creed III” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” actor Jonathan Majors appeared in court Monday facing domestic violence charges, TKTK

Majors, 33, was arrested March 25 in New York City and charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment following a “domestic dispute” with a 30-year-old woman.

According to a complaint by the Manhattan district attorney, the alleged victim said the Marvel star struck her “about the face with an open hand, causing substantial pain and a laceration behind her ear.” She sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was taken to a local hospital.

In the days that followed, his attorney, Priya Chaudhry, claimed to have obtained written statements from the woman recanting her initial allegations and shared unverified text message screenshots with TMZ that the woman allegedly sent to Majors after his arrest. On April 19, Chaudhry filed video evidence purportedly showing the alleged victim unharmed in the hours after the dispute.

In a statement released shortly after the arrest, Chaudhry claimed that the woman “was having an emotional crisis, for which she was taken to a hospital,” and that Majors “did not assault her whatsoever.”

A rising Hollywood darling who broke out with the 2019 Sundance award winner “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” and received an Emmy nomination in 2021 for the HBO series “Lovecraft Country,” Majors had two box office hits at the time of his arrest.

After originating the high-profile role of Kang the Conqueror on the Marvel series “Loki,” the actor portrayed the central antagonist of February’s MCU tentpole “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” before appearing in March opposite Michael B. Jordan in the hit boxing sequel “Creed III.”

Majors is set to return to “Loki” for its second season this year, and is expected to appear in the upcoming Marvel blockbusters “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” (2025) and “Avengers: Secret Wars” (2026) — in a potential career-making run as the studio’s next supervillain.

The fallout from Majors’ arrest has been swift.

On April 17, Deadline reported that the actor and budding producer had been axed by his talent management company Entertainment 360 and public relations firm the Lede Company.

Later that week, Variety reported that additional alleged abuse victims had come forward to the Manhattan D.A.’s office, citing sources familiar with the matter. Majors’ attorney disputed the report.

“This story is baseless and without any foundation,” Chaudhry told The Times via email. “Jonathan Majors is innocent and has not abused anyone. Mr. Majors is currently considering his legal options.”

Prominent upcoming projects that have also dropped him include the movie adaptation of Walter Mosley’s novel “The Man in My Basement” and an unannounced Otis Redding biopic he had reportedly been circling. Majors’ arrest also prompted the U.S. military to pull Army ads that featured him, while a Texas Rangers MLB ad campaign in which he was set to appear for the 2023 season has been canceled.

The fate of other Majors projects remains up in the air. The buzzy Sundance Film Festival drama “Magazine Dreams,” in which he stars as a bodybuilder on the edge of a violent breakdown, was acquired by Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures and is slated for a December release.

Source link