With December 18’s jury verdict finding Marvel Cinematic Universe star Jonathan Majors guilty of assault and harassment, Marvel Studios finally suspended the actor’s contract. Some fans have objected, asking why Josh Brolin, the actor behind the studio’s previous main villain, wasn’t held to the same standard.
On social media, some fans are asking why Marvel would drop Majors when it continued to employ other actors like Thanos actor Brolin, who was arrested in 2004 for allegedly hitting his second wife, actress Diane Lane.
What happened with Jonathan Majors?
On March 26, 2023, Majors was arrested on assault, strangulation, and harassment charges after his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, was admitted to the hospital due to injuries, notably a fractured finger. Majors had called 911 when he discovered Jabbari unconscious in their home after a fight.
Throughout the trial, Jabbari described the Creed III actor’s behavior as controlling, manipulative, and violent, all of which are words used by multiple people to describe the actor’s behavior at home and on set. In June, Rolling Stone unearthed over 20 allegations against Majors related to abuse and domestic violence, as well as a long history of allegedly controlling and aggressive behavior.
On Monday, December 18, after a three-week trial and two days of deliberation, a New York jury found Majors guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment, but not guilty of intentional assault in the third degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree. He faces up to a year in prison and will be sentenced on February 6, 2024.
The jury verdict comes less than a week after the court unexpectedly released a cache of case evidence to the public, including a video of Majors forcing Jabbari back into an SUV they had exited, the 911 call Majors made after the incident, and photos of numerous injuries Jabbari suffered during the altercation. The court also released an audio clip of Majors from a different incident in 2022, in which he can be heard berating Jabbari for getting drunk and urging her to support him the way Coretta Scott King or Michelle Obama supported their husbands.
What is the controversy around Josh Brolin and his past behavior?
After meeting at a premiere party for A Beautiful Mind and dating for a year, Brolin married Diane Lane, in August 2004. Several months later, in December 2004, Lane called the LAPD and alleged that Brolin had assaulted her. The actor was initially arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery, but when Lane declined to press charges, the case was dropped.
Following the incident, the couple expressed alarm that the arrest had attracted publicity. Kate Bush, a publicist for the couple, said the incident leading up to the arrest was merely a “misunderstanding,” with Brolin ending up “arrested for the lowest-end misdemeanor charge of domestic battery.”
“Diane did not want to press charges and asked them not to arrest him, but in cases involving the possibility of any physical contact, the police have to arrest first and ask questions later,” Bush’s statement clarified. “They are home together and are embarrassed the matter went this far.”
“I feel rage about that,” Brolin admitted to Playboy in 2010. “I can’t say, ‘No, I’m actually a really good guy and that didn’t happen.’ Everybody knows what happened because it’s all out there. I talked big, she said ‘F*** you’ and called the cops, and somebody had to go to jail … It’s been so disruptive to our lives. It’s also post-O.J., and that horrifies us both. It kills me, man. It kills me.”
Years later, in 2018, in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times touching on #MeToo and the public’s reckoning with actors’ bad behavior, Brolin said that “there’s no explaining it” when asked about his 2004 domestic abuse arrest, adding that he plans on keeping the details of the night under wraps unless Lane opens up about it first. “The only person who can explain that would be Diane, and she’s chosen not to, so I’m OK with that,” he told the paper.
“I was more reactive, I was more, ‘People need to know the truth.’ Whatever I say is going to sound like compensation for a perpetrator,” he continued. “I’ve gotten to a place where all that matters is that I have control over my behavior, and at that time, it was a little more chaotic.”
Brolin went on to say that he was heavily drinking during that period of his life (he’s now sober) and that “all moral code disappears” when he drinks. Unfortunately for Brolin, it’s a sentiment that has major Shia LaBeouf vibes (the actor also blamed alcohol for his domestic abuse of FKA Twigs). However, indicating that the Avengers: Infinity War actor did indeed have a drinking problem, he’s been arrested twice for alcohol-related incidents.
Brolin was arrested following a bar fight in 2008. After he and fellow cast member Jeffrey Wright wrapped filming on Oliver Stone’s George Bush biopic W, the two actors were involved in a bar fight and arrested outside a bar in Shreveport, Louisiana, along with five other members of the film’s crew. According to The Guardian, witnesses present at the bar fight said that the arrest spiraled out of control, with the cops using pepper spray on Brolin when he tried to stop the altercation and a taser gun on Wright (who, according to one witness, was also called a slur by the police).
Then, in 2013, CBS News reported that Brolin was arrested just before the stroke of midnight on January 1 when he was found heavily intoxicated on a Santa Monica sidewalk. He was booked on a misdemeanor public intoxication charge and spent six hours in jail while he sobered up. However, because Brolin was not given a citation for the arrest, he didn’t have to appear in court.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
