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Jonathan Majors evidently admitted to battering ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari in an audio recording that was obtained and published by Rolling Stone on Monday, nearly a year after the actor avoided jail time after being convicted of assaulting and harassing her in a separate case.
The clip of Majors, 35, surfaced days before the theatrical release of his delayed film Magazine Dreams – and as movie industry colleagues endorsed his attempts at a career comeback. It also seems to contradict his denials that he ever physically harmed Jabbari or women in general.
In the recording, as reported by Rolling Stone, Majors can be heard acknowledging that he shoved Jabbari against a car as well as squeezed her neck with his hands.
“I’m ashamed I’ve ever – I’ve never [been] aggressive with a woman before. I’ve never aggressed a woman – I aggressed you,” Majors said on the 28-second clip, which the outlet said was recorded in the aftermath of a days-long fight between him and Jabbari, a dancer and actor.
“You strangled me and pushed me against the car,” Jabbari, 32, can be heard replying. Majors, in turn, said: “Yes, all those things are under ‘aggressed’, yeah. That’s never happened to me.”
Asked if he attacked her for saying something sarcastic, Majors answered: “Well, it’s clearly more than that.” Jabbari remarked, “Something inside of you,” prompting Majors to say: “Yeah, towards you.”
In December 2023, a jury convicted Majors of misdemeanor assault and harassment during an argument earlier that year which began in the back seat of a chauffeured car but then spilled out on to a Manhattan street.
Jabbari described how Majors struck her in the head with an open hand, twisted her arm behind her back and broke her middle finger by squeezing it.
Majors at the time claimed that Jabbari was the aggressor – having flown into a jealous rage – and that he was merely trying to regain his phone and get away from her safely. He also granted an interview to ABC News in which he maintained that he was “reckless with [Jabbari’s] heart – not with her body”, and he has denied ever having battered any woman.
The judge presiding over the case sentenced Majors in April to undergo a counseling program for a year. In November, Jabbari dropped an assault and defamation lawsuit that she filed against him in federal court in Manhattan after the pair agreed to an out-of-court settlement.
Majors, the star of Creed III, was fired from a prominent role by Marvel Studios immediately after his conviction. And Magazine Dreams’ theatrical release had been postponed from December 2023 in part because of the case.
But the movie is now scheduled to be released on Friday. And, in advance of that release, the Hollywood Reporter published a profile of Majors containing supportive quotes from three notable past collaborators: actors Whoopi Goldberg, Michael B Jordan and Matthew McConaughey.
Goldberg said she was not “sure what else there is” for Majors, who is now engaged to actor Meagan Good, to do after the legal case with Jabbari. Jordan said he would “love to make Creed IV together – among other projects” with Majors. And McConaughey said he believed in Majors, knowing him to be “someone who is continuously striving to improve as a human, a man and an actor”.
Majors has not immediately addressed the audio recording published by Rolling Stone.
