Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | December 14, 2023
We haven’t written much about the Jonathan Majors trial because we’re not all that interested in the daily back-and-forths of a days-long jury trial for misdemeanor crimes. This is the kind of case that typically settles, but it’s clear that Jonathan Majors doesn’t want to settle because if he can elicit a not-guilty verdict, he thinks Hollywood (and Marvel) will welcome him back.
The reality is that Majors may get a not-guilty verdict. Jury trials are unpredictable, juries can get starstruck, and he has very expensive lawyers who have spent months smearing Majors’ ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, and it’s possible they can piece together a believable enough narrative to convince a jury that Majors didn’t hurt Jabbari. They’ve certainly convinced at least one media outlet.
“But what it really boils down to is four simple words: control, domination, manipulation, and abuse,” is how the prosecutor summed up the case against Majors. Whether that prosecutor, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galaway, can convince a jury that Majors got physically violent with Jabbari on the car ride home on March 25th, there is nevertheless plenty of evidence of Majors’ control, domination, manipulation, and abuse.
That evidence comes in the form of text messages and recordings. People Magazine has several texts showing that Majors tried to manipulate Jabbari out of seeking medical attention for a head injury by threatening to kill himself if she did and calling himself a “monster” and a “horrible man.” This is just one text message in the year-and-a-half relationship between Jabbari and Majors, but it illustrates the level of manipulation involved.
It’s an audio recording played during the trial that should have left zero doubt about whether to ever cast Jonathon Majors in another project. You can hear it on Variety, but it’s enough to know that Majors’ tone while comparing himself to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama is both aggressive and infantilizing:
Majors: Do you really love me? Do you really?
Jabbari: Yes.
Majors: Then how dare you come home drunk and disturb the peace of our house when we have a plan.
Jabbari: I’m sorry
Majors: I would like to get to the point where your friends know what job I’m on and go “I think Grace is gonna be out of commission.” Get me?
Jabbari: Yeah, I won’t.
Majors: No, no, do you understand that? Because that team, that unit, right? Grace has to be of a certain mindset to support — Coretta Scott King, do you know who that is? That’s Martin Luther King’s wife. Michelle Obama, Barack Obama’s wife.
Jabbari: I know, I shouldn’t have gone out. I’m sorry
Majors: Let me just lay it out for you, right? If I am, I’m just gonna say this. My temper, my sh**, all that. All that said, right? And let’s say, I’m a great man. A great man. I am doing great things, not just for me, but for my, for my culture and the world. That is actually the position I’m in. That’s real. I’m not being a dick about it. I didn’t ask for it. I’ve worked, and that’s the situation. The woman that supports me — that I support, the work that — needs to be a great woman and make sacrifices the way that man is making for her and for them ultimately. Last night, two nights ago, you did not do that.
Jabbari: I’m sorry
Majors: You did not do that, which was took away from the plan. And the plan is everything. If it was just you, maybe I could swallow it. Or I was just gonna like, “Hey, let’s go just bed. I’m just gonna bed, I’m not hungry, blah blah blah. Because Grace isn’t here. Why? She was drunk. Why else? She was clogged by whatever was going on.” Fine. I can take that. Fine.
Not guilty does not mean innocent. Whether a jury convicts Majors, it’s clear that he is a bad man, and should the jury come back with a not guilty verdict, no one should argue that he’s been vindicated.
