British choreographer Grace Jabbari has taken legal action against US actor Jonathan Majors, famous for his role as Kang in Marvel films, filing a civil lawsuit in a New York federal court.
The lawsuit, submitted on Tuesday, accused Majors of battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution, and defamation.
This development follows Majors’ criminal conviction three months ago, where a jury found him guilty of attacking and harassing Ms. Jabbari.
Scheduled for sentencing in April, Majors could potentially face up to a year in prison.
Court documents unveiled on Tuesday contain additional claims from Jabbari, alleging a “pattern of pervasive domestic abuse” that spanned from 2021 to 2023, with detailed accounts of violent incidents and verbal assaults.
The lawsuit specifically mentions a September 2022 attack by Majors that resulted in “serious injuries” to Jabbari.
In response to the lawsuit, Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry stated that they were anticipating the legal action and were preparing counterclaims against Jabbari.
Conversely, Brittany Henderson, representing Jabbari, commended her courage for holding someone of Majors’ stature accountable.
Following his criminal conviction, Marvel announced it would sever ties with Majors, who portrayed Kang the Conqueror in various Marvel productions.
Majors expressed shock at the jury’s decision during a January interview, questioning the verdict based on the evidence presented.
The ongoing legal battle casts a shadow over Majors’ career, including his involvement in the upcoming Avengers project, “The Kang Dynasty.”
In the aftermath of a trial aimed at vindicating him and reviving his Hollywood career, Jonathan Majors was convicted on Monday of assaulting his former girlfriend.
However, the outcome had the opposite effect, leading Marvel Studios and the Walt Disney Co. to drop him mere hours after the verdict.
Following a March confrontation with his then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, a Manhattan jury found Majors, 34, guilty of one misdemeanor assault charge and one harassment violation.
Jabbari claimed he attacked her in a car, causing “excruciating” pain, while his lawyers argued that Jabbari was the aggressor.
Majors, who was acquitted of a different assault charge and aggravated harassment, displayed no immediate reaction as the verdict was announced, looking slightly downward. He left the courthouse without offering any comments.
His lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, said in a statement that he “still has faith in the process and looks forward to fully clearing his name.”
She added that although he was found guilty of assault on the grounds of recklessly causing harm, his team was happy that he was found not guilty of the other assault charge, which dealt with intentional harm.
“Mr Majors is grateful to God, his family, his friends and his fans for their love and support during these harrowing eight months,” Chaudhry said.
“Mr Majors is grateful to God, his family, his friends and his fans for their love and support during these harrowing eight months,” Chaudhry said.
Marvel and Disney immediately dropped the “Creed III” star from all upcoming projects following the conviction, said a person close to the studio who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Before his arrest, Majors had been on track to become a central figure throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing the antagonist role of Kang. Majors had already appeared in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and the first two seasons of “Loki.” He was to star in “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” dated for release in May 2026.
Majors, whose credits include “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “Devotion” and “Da 5 Bloods,” had been one of the fastest-rising stars in Hollywood.
The Yale School of Drama graduate also starred as a troubled amateur bodybuilder in “Magazine Dreams,” which made an acclaimed debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January and was set to open in theatres this month.
Ahead of Majors’ trial, Disney-owned distributor Searchlight Pictures removed “Magazine Dreams” from its release calendar.
Majors’ sentencing was set for February 6. He faces the possibility of up to a year in jail for the assault conviction, though probation or other non-jail sentences also are possible.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that the trial “illustrated a cycle of psychological and emotional abuse and escalating patterns of coercion.”
The dispute between Majors and Jabbari began in the backseat of a chauffeured car and spilled into the streets of Manhattan.
Jabbari, a 30-year-old British dancer, accused Majors of hitting her in the head with his open hand, twisting her arm behind her back and squeezing her middle finger until it fractured.
Majors’ lawyers alleged that she flew into a jealous rage after reading a text message — from another woman — on his phone. They said Jabbari had spread a “fantasy” to take down the actor, who was only trying to regain his phone and get away safely.
But as Majors sought vindication from the jury, the trial also brought forth new evidence about his troubled relationship with Jabbari, whom he met on the set of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” two years ago.
Prosecutors shared text messages that showed the actor begging Jabbari not to seek hospital treatment for an earlier head injury. One message warned “it could lead to an investigation even if you do lie and they suspect something.”
They also played audio of Majors declaring himself a “great man,” then questioning whether Jabbari could meet the high standards set by the spouses of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. Majors’ attorneys countered that Jabbari had surreptitiously recorded her boyfriend as part of a plot to “destroy” his career.
Over four days of tearful testimony, Jabbari said Majors was excessively controlling and prone to fits of explosive rage that left her afraid “physically quite a lot.” She broke down on the witness stand as a jury watched security footage of him pushing her back into the car after the backseat confrontation. Prosecutors described the video as showing Majors “manhandling” her and shoving her into the vehicle “as if she was a doll.”
Majors arrived in the courtroom each morning carrying a gold-leaf Bible, accompanied by family members and his current girlfriend, actress Meagan Good. Expressionless for much of the testimony, he wiped away tears as Chaudhry urged jurors during her closing arguments on Thursday to “end this nightmare for Jonathan Majors.”
Majors did not take the stand. But Chaudhry said her client was the victim of “white lies, big lies, and pretty little lies” invented by Jabbari to exact revenge on an unfaithful partner.
The attorney cited security footage, taken immediately after the shove, that showed Majors sprinting away from his girlfriend as she chased him through the night. Jabbari then followed a group of strangers she’d met on the street to a dance club, where she ordered drinks for the group and did not appear to be favouring her injured hand.
“She was revenge-partying and charging Champagne to the man she was angry with and treating these strangers to fancy Champagne she bought with Jonathan’s credit card,” Chaudhry alleged.
The next morning, after finding Jabbari unconscious in the closet of their Manhattan penthouse, Majors called police. He was arrested at the scene, while Jabbari was transported to a hospital to receive treatment for the injuries to her ear and hand.
“He called 911 out of concern for her, and his fear of what happens when a Black man in America came true,” Chaudhry said, accusing police and prosecutors of failing to take seriously Majors’ allegations that he was bloodied and scratched during the dispute.
In her closing arguments, prosecutor Kelli Galaway said Majors was following a well-worn playbook used by abusers to cast their victims as attackers.
“This is not a revenge plot to ruin the defendant’s life or his career,” Galaway said. “You were asked why you are here? Because domestic violence is serious.”
Jonathan Majors, renowned for portraying Kang in Marvel films, has been convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, British choreographer Grace Jabbari, during an altercation in March.
The jury’s verdict was delivered on Monday after three days of deliberations. Majors, 34, could face up to a year in jail and has been dropped from upcoming Marvel movie roles.
The announcement prompted Marvel to state that they will not proceed with Majors on future projects.
The crime took place when the couple were in a car in New York and Ms Jabbari saw a text message from another woman on Majors’ phone, which said: “Wish I was kissing you right now.”
According to prosecutors, when she took the phone, he then grabbed her, twisted her arm behind her back and hit her in the head to get it back.
“I felt like a hard blow across my head,” Ms Jabbari testified.
The jury found him guilty of two of the four domestic violence charges that he was facing.
He was found guilty of assault by recklessly causing physical injury, as well as harassment.
But the jury declined to convict him on charges of aggravated harassment and assault with intent to cause physical harm.
The prosecution painted the assault as the latest escalation in Majors’ attempts to “exert control” over his girlfriend through physical and emotional violence. They shared voice recordings and text messages between the former couple with the jury.
“I’m a monster. A horrible man. Not capable of love,” the actor sent in a text in September 2022 while threatening to kill himself.
Grace Jabbari, seen during 2021’s London Fashion Week, was a movement coach on Ant-Man and the Wasp
In audio from an argument that same month, Majors told her she needed to act more like Coretta Scott King and Michelle Obama, the wives of Martin Luther King and former President Barack Obama.
“I am doing great things, not just for me but for my culture and the world,” he said, adding that she would need to “make sacrifices” for him.
Majors did not testify. His lawyer had argued the actor was the victim, and that Ms Jabbari assaulted him in a jealous rage after seeing the text message in the car.
Majors, known for his role in Creed III, filed a countersuit against Jabbari in June, claiming that she was the aggressor. However, prosecutors chose not to press charges against her due to insufficient evidence.
Sentencing is scheduled for February, and the judge has issued a new protection order, mandating that Majors must have no contact with Jabbari.
She was “gratified to see justice served” by the verdict, her lawyer said, adding that it should serve as an inspiration for other abused women to come forward.
“Ms Jabbari testified publicly and truthfully, even though reliving these traumatic events on the witness stand was obviously painful,” lawyer Ross Kramer said in a statement to BBC News.
Majors shown in a court sketch lowering his eyes as the verdict is readJurors were shown CCTV footage of the assault
A lawyer for Majors said in a statement that his legal team is “grateful” that the jury notably did not find that he had intended to cause physical injuries to Ms Jabbari.
“Mr Majors is grateful to God, his family, his friends, and his fans for their love and support during these harrowing eight months,” said lawyer Priya Chaudhry.
“Mr Majors still has faith in the process and looks forward to fully clearing his name.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the criminal charges, said after the verdict that the psychological and emotional abuses carried out by the movie star were “far too common across the many intimate partner violence cases we see each and every day”.
Two years before the incident, Grace Jabbari encountered Majors on the set of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where she served as a movement coach.
In the aftermath of Majors’ arrest, Marvel decided to delay the release of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty until 2026, where he was slated to play the lead villain.
Similarly, the release of Magazine Dreams, a film previously considered a potential Oscar contender, was also postponed following the allegations.
Jonathan Majors‘s former girlfriend told the court that the Marvel actor became more and more abusive during their relationship.
Grace Jabbari, a dancer, said Mr Majors hurt her in the back of a rented car in New York in March after months of abuse.
She was crying and needed to stop talking at times. She said he threw glass candles at her and yelled at her for talking about her ex-boyfriend.
Mr Majors said that he did not do the things he was accused of.
If he’s found guilty, he could go to jail for a year.
His career has been on hold since he was arrested in March. The release date for the movie he stars in has been delayed by Marvel.
Mr Majors is being accused of hurting Ms Jabbari in a car last month. She was left with bruises and a broken finger. She said he hit her and grabbed her neck in her complaint.
During the trial, Jabbari, who is 30 years old, talked about meeting Mr Majors while working on the movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as a movement coach in September 2021.
They began dating, but it became more and more abusive, she told the court.
The jury was told that the 34-year-old action star threw objects that made dents in the wall while she tried to hide. He ignored her for a few days because she went to a music festival. Grace Jabbari is wearing a black shirt with a high neck and a long grey skirt. Her elbows are lifted up.
The lawyers showed a recording of Mr. Majors shouting, in which he said he was a great man and wanted a woman like Coretta Scott King or Michelle Obama.
On 25 March, they were sitting in the back of a car when Mr. Majors got a text from another woman, and he doesn’t deny it.
Ms Jabbari said she took the phone from him, and then he grabbed her arm and hit her in the head to try to get it back.
They left the car and she ran after him on the streets, as seen in a video from security cameras that was shown to the jury.
Afterwards, Ms Jabbari went to a nightclub with people she didn’t know and was filmed smiling and dancing.
She said in court on Tuesday, “I was having the best time I could have in that situation,” according to AP.
But Majors says that Ms. Jabbari attacked him, not the other way around.
On Monday, his lawyer Priya Chaudhry said that her client was bloody and had scratches when he came out of the SUV.
Ms Jabbari tore off two buttons from his coat and ripped the pocket with her hands during the attack, the court was told.
Creed III actor Jonathan Majors has been arrested on strangulation, assault and harassment charges.
The New York Police Department said Mr Majors, who stars alongside Michael B Jordan in the recently released film, was involved in a domestic dispute with a 30-year-old woman on Saturday.
“The victim informed police she was assaulted,” a police spokesperson said.
Mr Majors was briefly taken into custody. A lawyer for the 33-year-old actor denied any wrongdoing.
The NYPD said they were called around 11:14 local time after receiving a 911 call from an apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea district.
They added the woman suffered minor head and neck injuries and was taken to hospital.
He was released from custody by Saturday night, an NYPD spokesperson told the Associated Press news agency.
In a statement obtained by the BBC, Mr Majors’ lawyer said the actor was “completely innocent” and alleged the star was the victim of the altercation involving a woman known to him.
Priya Chaudhry said: “We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney 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.
“All the evidence proves that Mr Majors is entirely innocent and did not assault her whatsoever.”
Mr Majors’ arrest comes just weeks after the actor presented an award at the Oscars.
Jonathan Majors, right, and Creed III co-star Michael B Jordan recently presented an award at the Oscars (Getty Images)
His career took off after breaking through in 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, before going onto to star in Netflix western The Harder They Fall and Marvel Comics film Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
Mr Majors plays Jordan’s adversary in Creed III, a boxing film released earlier this month.
