As Jonathan Majors continues to claim his innocence (even making a public appearance this past weekend with girlfriend Meagan Good), his conviction for misdemeanor reckless assault and harassment has led to a new defamation lawsuit from ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Jabbari’s claims led to his initial court case and conviction.
The new lawsuit, filed in New York federal court on Tuesday, according to media reports, makes claims for battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution and defamation, which come from Majors’ continued denial in the lead-up and aftermath of his conviction.
Priya Chaudhry, Majors’ attorney, said, “This is no surprise. Mr. Majors is preparing counterclaims against Ms. Jabbari.”
Majors faces up to a year in jail, based on his previous conviction.
“Now that Majors can no longer physically abuse Grace, he has resorted to very publicly abusing her reputation. Following his arrest, Majors immediately implemented an extensive media campaign smearing Grace, claiming that he was ‘completely innocent,’ ‘is provably the victim,’ that he ‘did not assault her whatsoever’ and that ‘this woman was having an emotional crisis, for which she was taken to a hospital,’” the suit reads.
Before the trial, Majors was one of the most in-demand young actors, thanks to starry turns in independent features like “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” and bigger studio movies like “Devotion” and “Creed III.” And he was poised to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next big bad, Kang, popping up in both the acclaimed Disney+ streaming series “Loki” and the feature film “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Following his conviction, Marvel Studios cut ties with the actor, as did his representation. “Magazine Dreams,” a Sundance breakout that was already generating substantial Oscar buzz, was quietly returned to the filmmakers after being acquired by Searchlight Pictures (like Marvel, a division of Disney) out of Sundance.
Since the conviction, Majors has given a single interview, to ABC, earlier this year (“Majors participated in an exclusive interview with ABC News wherein he doubled down on his public attack of Grace,” the new suit reads). There was also a recent red carpet appearance at the NAACP Image Awards.
