Jonathan Majors has been sentenced to complete a 52-week-long domestic-violence program after being convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. The actor will not face jail time unless he fails to finish the mandated counseling. His lawyer told the judge that Majors is “committed to growing and bettering himself as a person and accepts this painful opportunity to emerge stronger and healthier with a deeper understanding of self.”
The case revolved around an altercation in a chauffeured car in March 2023. Grace Jabbari, Majors’s ex, said in her court testimony that after finding romantic text messages from another woman, she grabbed Majors’s phone in the back of an SUV. He then hit her head and twisted her arm, resulting in a fractured finger and a laceration behind her ear. In a split verdict, the jury found Majors guilty of misdemeanor assault and a harassment violation but acquitted him of two other charges, one of which involved assault with intent.
Jabbari gave a tearful victim impact statement in court on Monday, saying the abusive relationship left her “unable to sleep and eat, hypervigilant at all times, and with a total loss of self-esteem.” Wearing a light-pink suit, Jabbari spoke about Majors isolating her from friends and family to the point where she became “a different version of myself.” “I was small, scared, and vulnerable,” she said. “I was held tightly in the palm of his abusive hand.” Despite the guilty verdict, Jabbari said Majors continues to publicly insist on his innocence. “He is not sorry, he has not accepted responsibility, and he will do this again,” she said. “He will hurt other women. This is a man who believes he is above the law.”
Majors did not make eye contact with Jabbari as she spoke. The actor, dressed in a black mock-neck and double-breasted jacket, flipped through a copy of the Bible for most of the sentencing hearing. His current girlfriend, actress Meagan Good, sat behind him in the courtroom along with his mother.
Prosecutor Kelli Galaway told the court that Majors has not shown any contrition for the assault. Instead, she said, he went on ABC News “to engage in a high-powered public-relations campaign” that involved disparaging Jabbari and questioning the verdict’s credibility. “The defendant’s complete lack of remorse as well as the pattern of abuse that Ms. Jabbari testified to and discussed with the Department of Probation make it all the more likely this defendant will reoffend without serious, in-person intervention through domestic-violence programming,” Galaway said.
Since Majors was arrested last year, his career has taken a nosedive. He was set to be a key fixture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kang the Conqueror but was dropped from the franchise after the guilty verdict was announced. And though he received critical acclaim for his performance in Magazine Dreams, the film’s release date has been indefinitely postponed. Still, Majors’s lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, said his team is optimistic that “he will work in the film industry soon.” She said the actor is already in therapy and asked the judge that Majors be allowed to attend the court-mandated “batterer-intervention program” remotely if a work opportunity arises. The judge responded that while the L.A.-based counseling should happen in person, he could likely make an accommodation.
Jabbari’s civil lawyer told the Cut that she is “very satisfied” with the sentence: “She is hopeful that 52 weeks of in-person domestic-violence programming will serve as a deterrent to future conduct by Mr. Majors.”
This is not the end of Majors’s legal troubles, however. In March, Jabbari filed a civil lawsuit against the actor, accusing him of assault and defamation. She describes several alleged incidents of abuse in the complaint, including one in September 2022 in which she claims Majors hit her head against a marble floor and strangled her “until she felt she could no longer breathe.” The lawsuit also cites the accounts of two other former girlfriends who have come forward with emotional- and physical-abuse allegations against Majors to accuse the actor of a pattern of misconduct. Majors did not make a statement at the sentencing hearing out of fear that Jabbari would “attempt to use it against him in her civil case,” Chaudhry told the court.
This post has been updated.