Last month actor Jonathan Majors, who recently starred in Creed III and in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a 30-year-old woman he was in a relationship with.
Police responded around 11 a.m. Saturday to a 911 call inside an apartment in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea.
“The victim informed police she was assaulted,” a spokesperson for the NYPD said in a statement. “Officers placed the 33-year-old male into custody without incident. The victim sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was removed to an area hospital in stable condition.”
It’s pretty common, in my experience, for attorneys representing famous people to claim their clients are completely innocent. But even given that expectation, the denials by Majors’ attorney, Priya Chaudhry, seemed especially specific.
Chaudhry said there was evidence clearing Majors, including “video footage from the vehicle where this episode took place, witness testimony from the driver and others who both saw and heard the episode, and most importantly, two written statements from the woman recanting these allegations.”
At the time, it make me wonder if there was more to this, or maybe less to it than it appeared. But today Variety is reporting that the situation is about to get worse for Majors. There are allegedly other victims who are prepared to come forward.
Sources familiar with the matter tell Variety that multiple alleged abuse victims of Majors have come forward following his March arrest and are cooperating with the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The prospect of more women waiting in the wings would mark a dramatic turn in the case and comes on the heels of Majors’ publicists and management firm cutting ties with the embattled actor earlier this week.
As mentioned above, shortly after his arrest, the woman who initially claimed assault changed her tune and wrote messages to Majors saying she loved him and that she’d been assured nothing would happen to him. But someone set to work with Majors on a future film told Variety they weren’t impressed.
The woman allegedly wrote, “Please let me know you’re okay when you get this. They assured me that you won’t be charged. They said they had to arrest you as protocol when they saw the injuries on me and they knew we had a fight. I’m so angry that they did. And I’m sorry you’re in this position. Will make sure nothing happens about this. … I love you.”…
“It read like a bad Lifetime movie. They basically look like the text messages of a textbook abused woman,” says one person who is working with Majors on an upcoming project.
All of this is bad news for Marvel because Majors has been playing Kang the Conqueror and was set to star as the villain in the next Avengers movie. So at this point Marvel can’t just abandon it’s central villain. If things get worse for Majors they’ll have to recast the role.
It wouldn’t be the first time Marvel has done that. They recast the role of Iron Man’s best friend James Rhodes, replacing Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle between Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Marvel was also recently forced to recast the role of Gen. Thunderbolt Ross who was played by William Hurt in a couple films before he passed away last March. The role has now been given to Harrison Ford for the next Captain America movie.
But it’s also still possible Majors will ride this out the way that Flash actor Ezra Miller was able to. Majors’ team has already released another firm denial in the wake of the Variety story.
“Jonathan Majors is innocent and has not abused anyone,” his attorney Priya Chaudhry said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News shortly after Variety published its story. “We have provided irrefutable evidence to the District Attorney that the charges are false. We are confident that he will be fully exonerated.”
With other projects dropping away, it really looks like his future is up to Marvel. Presumably they are waiting to see what the new accusers have to say.
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