The U.S. Army has paused promotion of its new recruitment ads featuring actor Jonathan Majors amid assault allegations surrounding his Saturday arrest.
“The U.S. Army is aware of the arrest of Jonathan Majors and we are deeply concerned by the allegations surrounding his arrest,” public affairs chief for the Army Enterprise Marketing Office Laura DeFrancisco said in a statement shared with Army Times. “While Mr. Majors is innocent until proven guilty, prudence dictates that we pull our ads until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”
The campaign, which was launched in early March, pays homage to the ’80s-era slogan “Be All You Can Be” while featuring Majors jumping across various historical eras of the armed forced. The ads, whose launch was pushed up from its initial release planned for August in an effort to boost recruitment, hoped to gain resonance among Gen Z audiences through Majors’ involvement.
As of Sunday, the videos of ad campaign featuring Majors were removed from the U.S. Army’s social media channels.
Majors was arrested Saturday in New York after police officers responded to a 911 call from an apartment located in the 10th Precinct at approximately 11:14 a.m. Majors was subsequently arrested and accused of domestic dispute after the victim, who was not identified, “sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was removed to an area hospital in stable condition.”
Following his arrest, the “Creed III” actor’s criminal defense lawyer said his legal team will present video evidence that he is “completely innocent,” “with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently.”
“This evidence includes 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,” Majors’ criminal defense lawyer Priya Chaudhry said in a statement. “All the evidence proves that Mr. Majors is entirely innocent and did not assault her whatsoever.”
Chaudhry also suggested that Majors was provably “the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows,” adding that the incident “came about because this woman was having an emotional crisis, for which she was taken to a hospital yesterday.”
“The NYPD is required to make an arrest in these situations, and this is the only reason Mr. Majors was arrested,” the statement continued. “We expect these charges to be dropped soon.”
