Actor Jonathan Majors was arrested on Saturday morning in New York City after a woman made allegations of strangulation, assault, and harassment. The 30-year-old alleged victim of the assault was taken to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries to her head and neck.
The arrest occurred after a 911 call was made from a Manhattan apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood, at 11:14 am. New York Police have described the incident as a “domestic dispute”.
Jonathan Majors’ criminal defense attorney, Priya Chaudhry, released a statement, defending her client: “Jonathan Majors is completely innocent and is probably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows…We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently.”
Chaudhry claimed there is already a wide array of evidence proving her client’s innocence, including: video evidence from the vehicle in which the incident took place; witness testimony from the driver and onlookers on the scene; and two written statements from the alleged victim, recanting her statements.
There has already been some blowback from the allegations, in the form of the US Army pulling two new ads with Majors in them, which aired at the beginning, and throughout NCAA March Madness. In a statement from the Army’s Enterprise Marketing Office, the Army explained the decision to no longer air the campaign, saying there were “deeply concerned by the allegations,” and that although Majors “is innocent until proven guilty, prudence dictates that we pull our ads until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”
The halt of the commercials could prove disconcerting for the US Army, which has faced a dramatic drop-off in recruitment; and hoped to reach a young audience with the help of Jonathan Majors recent success and the ad space during NCAA games.
Majors’ star has risen tremendously fast in the recent past, catching his first break, away from the theater, in HBO’s Lovecraft Country; and more recently starring in Creed II, opposite Michael B. Jordan and a childhood friend turned foe, and landing a role in the Marvel universe as Kang the Conqueror.
