Several months after Jonathan Majors was found guilty of reckless assault and harassment against his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, she has filed another civil suit against him alleging battery and defamation.
The charges against Majors stemmed from a domestic abuse incident that occurred on March 25, 2023. Since the allegations arose, he has vehemently denied the claims, and the drastic actions he and his legal team took to defend him raised many eyebrows. Several months after the incident, Majors decided to try to turn the tables on Jabbari and accuse her of abuse. He managed to file a suit against her even though the preliminary investigation found no grounds to arrest or seek charges against her. Even after his suit was thrown out for being retaliatory, he and his team continued pushing this narrative.
Unfortunately, it is becoming a trend for abusers to retaliate against victims by publicly accusing them of lying, abuse, or defamation. Meanwhile, it is also becoming more and more common for the public to interfere in these cases and show support for alleged abusers. Many social media users began trying to smear Jabbari’s reputation, as they got #JusticeForJonathanMajors trending multiple times before the trial even started. Even after Majors was found guilty on several charges and fired from his role as Kang in the MCU, there has still been a nauseating display of support for him as he secured a Good Morning America interview within weeks of the verdict and recently walked the red carpet at the NAACP Awards.
However, Jabbari is now seeking further justice with an additional lawsuit against the actor.
Grace Jabbari accuses Jonathan Majors of defamation, assault, and battery
Majors is still awaiting his sentencing for the charges of reckless assault and harassment, but Jabbari recently filed an additional civil suit against him. During the initial case, prior instances of alleged abuse were not permitted as evidence due to the case’s sole focus on the March 2023 incident. However, Jabbari and her team had prepared proof of at least two additional instances in which Majors was physically violent towards Jabbari or had threatened her. In one of the instances, she and her team provided text messages showing how Majors had pleaded with her not to seek medical attention for her injuries and called himself a “monster and horrible man.”
She is also suing him for malicious prosecution and defamation. The suit points out how Majors has consistently lied about the abuse allegations, including after the guilty verdict when he stated he had “never put his hands on a woman” in his life. The lawsuit, which was obtained by Rolling Stone, states:
When publicly confronted with Grace’s numerous allegations of abuse, Majors has called her a liar at every turn and very specifically claimed that he has never put his hands on a woman, with the goal of convincing the world that Grace is not a victim of domestic abuse but instead a crazy liar who should be treated as such.
Majors’ lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, is also mentioned in the suit after she gave an exceedingly bizarre statement to The Cut following the trial, stating, “I don’t give a s**t … The idea that I should coddle [Jabbari feels like suggesting] I should coddle the woman who accused Emmett Till.” Jabbari’s additional charges also come several weeks after two additional former partners of Majors came forward to accuse him of physical and emotional abuse. The new suit raises hope that justice will be served the second time around as the aftermath of Majors’ guilty verdict has been perplexing.
He and his team have continued giving defamatory and false statements about Jabbari and the case, exacerbating social media users’ attacks on her. Additionally, he has somehow maintained a platform and continued speaking to the media and attending public events while awaiting his sentencing. Meanwhile, the defamation element of the suit is especially important and, if successful, could prove instrumental in protecting survivors of abuse from smear campaigns in the future. If the court agrees that Majors and his team defamed Jabbari, it may help prevent other abusers from publicly attacking their victims, accusing them of lying, and falsely accusing them of being the abusers for the threat of legal action.
In this recent trend, too many victims have not only had to deal with an emotionally draining physical trial but have also been put on trial on social media, where they have been relentlessly attacked and have to see bold displays of love and support for their abusers. If a precedent can be set showing that abusers can’t just issue any defamatory statement or false allegations about their victims, it may be the first real action to help dismantle these horrific social media smear campaigns.
(featured image: Lia Toby / Getty)
