Jonathan Majors convicted in NYC domestic assault case

Once-rising Hollywood star Jonathan Majors was found guilty Monday of assaulting his then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari inside a private car service in Manhattan — crippling his prospects of headlining future Marvel franchise films.

The 34-year-old actor, who played supervillain Kang the Conqueror in 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” was convicted by a Manhattan jury of misdemeanor assault and harassment as a violation after Jabbari, 30, testified that she lived in fear of his violent outbursts during a traumatic, two-year-relationship that ended when he struck a “hard blow” across her head early this year.

Within hours of the verdict, Marvel Studios, a subsidiary of Disney, decided to drop Majors. The movie studio had planned to have Majors star as Kang the Conqueror in at least two upcoming films: “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” in 2026 and “Avengers: Secret Wars” in 2027.

He faces up to one year behind bars at his sentencing on Feb. 6, though he is more likely to receive a non-jail sentence of probation.

Majors — who didn’t comment as he left Manhattan Criminal Court hand-in-hand with his new girlfriend, actress Meagan Good — stood stoically in his double-breasted silver suit as the jury delivered its decision following about seven hours of deliberations over three days.

The March altercation at the center of the case erupted in the back seat of a black Cadillac Escalade when Jabbari snatched Majors’ cellphone away after spotting a flirty text — which read “I wish I was kissing you” — from another woman named “Cleopatra,” trial testimony revealed.

As Majors tried to pry back his phone, Jabbari attempted to “protect myself” by curling her body away from the actor, she told jurors.

Majors then twisted her arm behind her back, causing “excruciating pain,” grabbed at her fingers and hit her with an open hand, Jabbari testified.

“I felt like a hard blow across my head,” the soft-spoken blonde told jurors, smacking the microphone on the witness stand in front of her hard to demonstrate the strike’s impact.

Majors has maintained his innocence since his arrest on March 25, with his lawyers arguing that Jabbari was the aggressor during the altercation and that prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the actor caused her injuries.

He was acquitted on the other two counts he faced, one of assault and one of harassment, that required the jury finding he acted with intent.

The two-week trial revealed Majors’ “cycle of psychological and emotional abuse,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a statement.

“We thank the jury for its service and the survivor for bravely telling her story despite having to relive her trauma on the stand,” Bragg added.

Jabbari testified at trial over four days, and left the witness stand in tears when she revisited past examples of Majors’ alleged violent behavior and rewatched footage of police officers questioning her as she lay half-naked on the floor of Majors’ walk-in closet.

Her attorney, Ross Kramer, called the verdict “justice served.”

“We hope that her actions will inspire other survivors to speak their truth and seek justice,” Kramer said in a statement.

Majors, who chose not to testify, attended the trial wearing an array of different double-breasted suits and with his new girlfriend on his arm as he walked in and out of the courtroom.

He also stole occasional glances at a gold-leaf Bible he carried to and from the defense table.

The actor is “disappointed” in the verdict, yet still “has faith in the process and looks forward to fully clearing his name,” said his attorney, Priya Chaudhry, in a statement.

Surveillance video presented at trial showed Majors lifting up Jabbari — a dancer and movement coach he’d met in 2021 on the set of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” — and pushing her several times back inside the for-hire black SUV after it pulled over at Centre and Canal streets in Chinatown.

Jabbari was treated at Bellevue Hospital the morning after the incident for a gash on her right ear and a fractured right middle finger, prosecutors said.

The trial also unearthed evidence of Majors’ past alarming behavior during his relationship with Jabbari, including that he allegedly begged his ex not to see a doctor after she suffered a head injury in a separate September 2022 incident.

“I fear you have no perspective of what could happen if you go to the hospital,” the “Creed III” actor wrote in a text message at the time. “They will ask you questions, and as I don’t think you actually protect us, it could lead to an investigation even if you do lie and they suspect something.”

The full text exchange was partially redacted, but trial evidence revealed that Jabbari responded that, if she did seek treatment, she would “tell the doctor I bumped my head.”

“Why would I tell them what really happened when it’s clear I want to be with you?” she added.

In a twist, the embarrassing texts only surfaced after Majors’ lawyer Chaudhry “opened the door” to them by relentlessly grilling Jabbari about why she gave police and doctors vague answers about the March episode, the court found.

Judge Michael Gaffey then ruled that prosecutors should be allowed to provide additional context about why Jabbari may have been wary of telling authorities the truth about what happened.

Jurors also heard a recording of Majors lecturing Jabbari that she needed to behave more like the wives of other notable men, like Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr., and “make sacrifices for him.”

“I’m a great man. A GREAT man. I am doing great things, not just for me but for my culture and for the world,” the actor says in the September 2022 recording, which was made by Jabbari.

Majors had been upset at Jabbari at the time for going out to a pub with a friend despite his demands that she instead attend to his needs while he prepared for a role, she testified.

“I would like to get to the point where your friends know what job I’m on and go, ‘I think Grace is going to be out of commission,’” Majors says in the recording.

Jurors also heard about how Majors, in Jabbari’s telling, was both a “loving” boyfriend who left her handwritten notes early in their relationship — and an erratic partner prone to fits of rage.

“He just exploded,” Jabbari testified of a July 2022 incident in which she said Majors smashed candles and other household objects against the wall of their bedroom.

“His face just kind of changes when he gets into that place,” she added.

Wiping tears from her face, Jabbari also explained on the stand why she decided repeatedly to stay with Majors despite her fears about his frequent eruptions.

“I felt that I had to keep secrets from everyone,” she testified. “It felt quite confusing because I felt really scared of him, but quite dependent on him.”

ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3R7kGtmanBforK1vs5ooaimkam1orqMppijp6KoeqS7za%2BgnKyVmXqquoynsJxllKS6pr%2FToppmmaOorra402aamquVZA%3D%3D