What Happened to Jonathan Majors? Is he finished in Hollywood?

Last Updated on January 30, 2024

A lot can change in a year. At this time last year Jonathan Majors was on top of the world. His movie, Magazine Dreams (which we loved) played to raves at Sundance, was bought by Searchlight and planned for an awards run. He had Creed III coming out, plus he was Kang! But, all of that went up in smoke overnight? How does this happen?

One word: Hollywood.

Ah yes, that tempting town where talent often overshadows any sort of character flaw. Many people claim it to be a new development with the advent of social media, where a person tweets out something dumb ten years ago only to have it brought back up when they have a new Netflix movie dropping. But actually, celebrities have seen their careers implode long before people posted pictures of their dinners online for the world to see. Think back to the story of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, one of the highest-paid silent film stars of the era whose talent and fame were overshadowed when a woman was assaulted and subsequently died at a party hosted by the famed comedian. Arbuckle was acquitted of the crimes, but his career never recovered. We have never seen a career implosion like we witnessed in 2023 when an emerging talent had a genuine break-out year that was expected to end with a a film that would see him nominated and potentially even win an Oscar. Instead, the year ended with that project shelved, potentially never to see the light of day and a career seemingly cut short when the dark side of their private life was exposed to the world. It’s time we sit back and find out just WTF Happened to Jonathan Majors.

But as always, we must begin at the beginning, and the beginning began on his birthday, September 7, 1989, in Lompoc, California. Majors began living on an Air Force base when his father was in the service before relocating to Texas, where Majors would later say that his father just disappeared, not reconnecting with the family until 17 years later. This forced his mother to take care of him and his two siblings, taking the task to heart and ultimately earning her master’s degree to become a Pastor. Majors has said that his mother’s spirituality and hard work were major influences on his life. But sometimes, without a male role model in your life, especially at that young age, you start to act out, and Jonathan Majors was always in some sort of trouble, whether it was fighting in school or being arrested for shoplifting. Ironically, fighting in school and getting into trouble would lead Majors to discover acting. After one of his many fights at his Dallas area school Majors was enrolled in an alternative education program which would include performing on stage, something Majors chose after being inspired by seeing Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight. It was there that Majors says he found his safe space. And that alternate education would turn into a genuine passion as he enrolled in the University of North Carolina School of the Arts before attending the prestigious Yale School of Drama. While attending Yale, Majors would land his first big role: playing a young Ken Jones in 2017’s Gus Van Sant/ Dustin Lance Black miniseries When We Rise. That same year, Majors would make his big screen debut in the Christian Bale starring Hostiles.

After another two supporting roles in the Matthew McConaughey starring White Boy Rick and crime drama Out of Blue (both 2018), Majors would land his breakout role in the critically acclaimed independent The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019). Despite the film receiving a limited release with a box office take that isn’t anything to write home about, the critical acclaim that came from the film essentially put Majors on the radar of the rest of Hollywood. The film had strong Oscar buzz coming out of its buzzy Sundance Premiere. Although Oscar glory never came for the film, it did secure nearly 80 nominations from various organizations, including Best Supporting Actor nominations for Majors from several awards groups. He would finish 2019 by appearing in three under-the-radar films, including Captive State, Gully and Jungleland, before landing a decent-sized role in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. This would be the first role Majors got that he didn’t have to audition for, as he says one day he was just told that Spike Lee wanted to meet with him. Spike had been impressed with the stuff he had seen Majors in and offered him the role on the spot. The film would be a big hit for Netflix while also nabbing Majors (along with his cast mates) a nomination at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Later that year Majors would return to TV for the anticipated HBO horror TV series Lovecraft Country. The series would garner strong reviews calling it “marvellously entertaining” but sadly would be cancelled after just a single season with the studio citing budgetary reasons. The series would go on to receive over 140 nominations, including individual recognition for Majors’ leading performance from several prominent awards circuits, including an Emmy Nomination, a Critics Choice Nomination and an Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series from the Screen Actors Guild Awards. By 2021, Majors would start to break into more mainstream appeal by hosting Saturday Night Live and starring in The Harder They Fall, where, yet again, he would rack up raves for his flawless leading performance. But it would be his other released project of 2021 that would begin to lay the seeds of an A-lister on the horizon. Jonathan Majors would appear in a single episode of the Marvel Universe TV series Loki , where he would play He Who Remains and Victor Timely, two characters who are variants of the powerful Marvel villain Kang The Conquerer. Marvel was laying the seeds for their next big villain, and in the cynical world of fandom, the casting of Jonathan Majors in that role was the rare occurrence where almost everyone seemed to be on board with it.

2022 would see Majors appear in the true story Devotion, which sadly was not a huge hit, garnering just $21.8 million off a $90 million budget, but it showed the type of projects Majors was interested in. Everyone loves the Marvel paychecks and fame that come with them. Majors’ filmography has mainly been about telling Black American history through fictitious stories that highlight those experiences or films like Devotion that tell stories of overlooked heroes. And Majors was damn good in them, as evidenced by again being nominated for several awards. But it would be the year 2023 that would forever alter Jonathan Majors’ life. Majors was primed for a genuine leap forward in his career. He would kick off the year by appearing in the highly anticipated Creed III, where he would play the film’s antagonist opposite Michael B. Jordan’s celebrated Adonis Creed. Majors would receive praise for his performance, with critics calling it “raw” and “powerful.”

Majors’ next role was one that had more attention on it than any other project he had ever worked on. The Marvel Cinematic Universe seemed to be in a bit of a rut since Avengers: Endgame concluded the first big ark of storytelling as the heroes vanquished their mortal enemy, Thanos. In the time between, people wondered who would be the next big antagonist that would unite the world’s greatest superheroes. On February 17, 2023, we got our answer when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hit theatres, and audiences were finally introduced to Kang The Conquerer, as played by Jonathan Majors. The film itself would divide fans as most found it to be a lacklustre entry in a fading franchise, but one aspect of the film seemed to garner near unanimous praise: Jonathan Majors was absolute perfection as the new bad guy. His performance alone excited fans again about the MCU and where it was heading. Majors had finally hit the A-List. Everything seemed to be looking up for the star. He would reprise his role in Loki: Season 2 which had already been filmed and was awaiting its release on Disney+ and could potentially finish out the year with some solid awards heat as his film Magazine Dreams had garnered genuine Oscar buzz for Majors when it premiered at the Sundance Film festival in January of 2023. If ever a year belonged to a performer, 2023 was Jonathan Majors’ year.

And then, in an instant, Majors’ world came crumbling down. On the evening of March 25, 2023, Majors was arrested for a domestic dispute when his girlfriend told police that Majors had assaulted her, resulting in Majors being charged with several counts of assault and harassment. His representative would release a statement saying that Majors had done nothing wrong and was, in fact, the victim of the assault and looked forward to clearing his name. The arrest made national news, and the repercussions were immediate, with the Army pulling recruitment ads they had shot with the actor while Marvel remained tight-lipped about what they would do, simply saying that Majors would appear in the already completed Loki: Season 2.

By June 21, there seemed to a bit of a tide shifting in favor of Majors. He was frequently seen arriving to court with new girlfriend Meagan Good by his side, along with several pieces of information released by Majors’ attorney that hinted that he was actually the victim of the assault. A claim that seemed to take further proof when Majors would file a domestic violence complaint against his alleged victim. For anyone following the case, this was turning into a genuine “he said, she said” type of trial.

And then on June 29, 2023, Rolling Stone Magazine released a scathing article where several people from Majors’ past would detail years of erratic and often times abusive behavior by the actor. Rolling Stone had conducted a three-month investigation into the actor where they spoke with over 40 individuals who knew Majors throughout his life, including romantic partners and fellow students at the Yale School of Drama all the way through production workers on his film Magazine Dreams. All sources wished to remain anonymous out of genuine fear from Majors. Through these interviews, Jonathan Majors was painted as a man with a violent streak who was adept at being emotionally, verbally and even physically abusive. One of his former romantic partners told several sources that dating Majors was “emotional torture.” The story that emerged from the article was one of a performer who was so intense and domineering that it made those around him uncomfortable and fearful. But it also showed a man whose private life was filled with unrealistic demands from those he surrounded himself with. He was a controlling individual who demanded to be in charge of those he was romantically involved with, right down to the food they would eat. Some of these claims seemed to have been corroborated when, during the trial, an audio recording of Majors telling his alleged victim that he was a great man and that he expected her to be like Coretta Scott King and Michelle Obama because for some reason this silly actor man thinks he can compare himself to a great civil rights leader and a freaking President. For his part, Majors, through his attorneys, said that the allegations made by Rolling Stone magazine are false and that he never physically, verbally or emotionally abused anyone.

On November 29, 2023, the trial against Jonathan Majors would begin, and through it, a picture would be painted of Jonathan Majors that was a far cry from the talented actor we had all grown to admire. Video footage would be shown from the night in question showing Majors shoving his alleged victim back in the SUV while also showing footage of Majors running away from that same victim as she chased him. Text messages were released where Majors discussed wanting to kill himself. This was truly a trial that could have gone either way, it seemed there was evidence on both sides that could have seen a verdict of Not Guilty just as easily as Guilty. On December 18, 2023, a jury of his peers found Jonathan Majors Guilty of Misdemeanor assault in the third degree while recklessly causing physical injury as well as harassment in the second degree. The jury did, however, find him Not Guilty of misdemeanour assault in the third degree with intent to cause physical injury and misdemeanour harassment in the second degree. Essentially, the Jury believed that Majors did not attack his victim but, through reckless behavior, caused the injuries she sustained that night.

It wouldn’t take long before the hammer dropped. Shortly after the verdict against Jonathan Majors was read, Marvel would formally drop Majors from their roster. While the release of his film Magazine Dreams, a film that had many claiming Majors could win an Oscar, put on the back burner indefinitely with no current plans to release the film. Jonathan Majors started the year 2023 on top of the world, and ended it a guilty man with no career.

On January 8, 2024 Majors would sit down with ABC News’ Linsey Davis for his first public comments in nearly a year. In the interview, Majors maintains that he has never put his hands on a woman in his entire life and calls all claims against him to be completely false. He claims that his biggest mistake was not being brave enough to end what he called a “toxic” relationship and that he wished he had not gotten back in the car on that night. For some, the interview came across as a man who still couldn’t take responsibility for his own actions, while others claim that Majors was the true victim and eagerly anticipated his comeback.

Career implosions are nothing new in Hollywood. Over the past few years, we have seen some of the most prominent names in Hollywood lose everything when their seedy private lives became exposed for the world to see, but we had never witnessed one like this. Jonathan Majors was only just beginning to be a household name, his talent being compared to some of the greatest artists of all time, and then, in an instant, that name associated with talent became forever tainted with violence. The guilty verdict may have been the nail in the coffin, but the Rolling Stone article was certainly the beginning of the end for the actor. Underneath that talent was a man who needed control not just of those around him but also of the narrative of his public persona. As we have said many times in these videos, Hollywood is a very forgiving place where, oftentimes, talent can triumph over anything. For his part, Majors has promised to appeal what he says is an unfair verdict, with him maintaining his innocence throughout the ordeal. Only time will tell if audiences will embrace him again or will his public persona fade away due to the details of his private life that he fought so hard to hide. And that is WTF Happened to Jonathan Majors.