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Jonathan Majors, whose rising acting career ground to a halt after he faced a domestic-violence trial in 2023, has given his first interview since being sentenced last year for recklessly assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the release of his long-delayed film Magazine Dreams, the 35-year-old actor discussed at length the aftermath of his trial and publicly disclosed for the first time that he was sexually abused as a child.
“At some point there has to be accountability for writing your own story,” Majors told THR. “Am I going to fall into that narrative of falling apart, of self-destruction? Have a struggle, blame the world. Have a struggle, hate yourself. Have a struggle, deny everything. None of those narratives is beneficial.” Instead, he said his approach currently is “Have a struggle, learn, metabolize, grow.”
In December 2023, a New York jury found Majors guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. During the trial, Jabbari testified that Majors had a violent temper over the course of their two-year relationship, describing several incidents in which he assaulted her or was emotionally manipulative. Two other former partners have also publicly said that Majors was physical and emotionally abusive toward them; the actor has denied the allegations, telling Good Morning America after the verdict that he has “never hit a woman.”
A lot of THR’s profile focuses on Majors’s pain; he told THR that there were days during and after the process when he asked himself, “Is this real?” He added, “It’s a heartbreak like I’ve never experienced and it just compounded and compounded.” The outlet also included glowing statements from people who’ve previously worked with Majors, from Whoopi Goldberg, Michael B. Jordan, and Matthew McConaughey to producers, directors, and executives — all of whom praised his work ethic and how he behaved on set.
THR says that Jabbari’s legal team didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. The impact Majors’s abuse and the trial had on Jabbari’s life comes across, however unintentionally, as almost an afterthought in the piece.
Ultimately, Majors avoided jail time and was instead sentenced to a 52-week-long domestic-violence intervention program. One would think that — even though he and Jabbari settled her defamation lawsuit against him and are presumably prevented from addressing the assault — he’d still be able to talk about what he learned during these classes so far. Has he been able to put himself in Jabbari’s shoes and understand the harm he caused his former partner? Does he see the connection between the horrific abuse he says he experienced as a child and his violent conduct as an adult? How is he thinking about ensuring he is a safe partner to his fiancée, actress Meagan Good? Alas, the final edit of the piece doesn’t tell us any of that.
Maura Hooper, one of the two ex-girlfriends who alleges he was emotionally abusive, said she isn’t buying his rehabilitation campaign. “I don’t really care that his movie is coming out,” she told THR. “What do you get at the end of a 52-week domestic violence course? Do the victims get a debrief? How could I know if he’s changed? I don’t see redemption happening here.”
