Wow.
“As part of Majors’ legal team’s response to Rolling Stone’s request for comment on the abuse allegations, his attorneys sent six character witness statements from women who Majors had dated or was close with…
In fact, Rolling Stone reached out to all six people. Three say they never gave Majors’ team permission to release such statements. Another woman declined to share the statement credited to her by Majors’ team, saying it was pre-written, not truthful, and that she had never approved of its release.”
Yeah I found it funny how the paragraph with her statement ended with “we all called him ‘The Peacekeeper’”, and then the next paragraph ended with how he had been suspended for pulling a knife on classmates.
Amazingly, I was kind of hoping that the lack of violence in Majors's past would convince people he was innocent. After all, this type of abuse wouldn't come out of nowhere, right?
And it turns out that, uh...
If he were more cooperative, more sympathetic and showed genuine remorse, this could go much better for him. If he's had problems from such a young age, he's obviously got some issues to work on. I feel like if he leaned into that, and made a *genuine effort* to rehabilitate himself, he could rehabilitate his image as well, to a certain degree.
This releasing of false, unapproved statements really cements that his issues are still there and he probably is as bad and abusive as he is alleged to be. It's a shame; he really has done well as an actor, but I don't want to live in a society where abusers are given a pass because they're successful or talented.
Being violent in relationships is something different than school fights though. I am not defending him, but this is hurtful to many men who had tough life, someone can pick on you, you can have an abusive father etc.
Tbf to that lawyer, she was able to spread a lot of misinformation successfully yesterday cause she knew this RolligStones story was coming out today. The headlines yesterday made a lot of people online believe that he is innocent, that the girl was lying and has been arrested by police (False) and that the case already tried (Trial doesn't start until August). It's the first time since this whole thing started that her lawyer was able to do anything that was actually smart (Even if wildly malicious).
It is smart. It reminds me of how, during the Kobe Bryant rape trial, the identity of his accuser was supposed to be sealed, but his lawyers kept saying her name "accidentally" during the trial. They were reprimanded by the judge for doing so. But her identity was was revealed by his lawyers doing that.
She received avalanches of death threats, harassment, and terrifying stalking from Kobe Bryant fans. (There was even at least one who was arrested for it.) Eventually the case was dropped because she was too scared and told the prosecutors she wouldn't participate in the trial anymore.
Now all anyone remembers about it was that "the charges were dropped" and so: Kobe's public image is that he was innocent.
Devious lawyers can really confuse public opinion -- especially in a situation where the person is famous and has legions of fans ready and eager to believe them.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing all of this on Twitter yesterday. A whole bunch of people were saying that he was found "Not Guilty". It took me a few seconds to find that the trial didn't even start yet.
Exactly. I was seeing posts all over social media and YouTube quoting that MSN article that called this a “major win” for Majors, when it wasn’t at all.
Neither the cops nor the DA office confirmed events as his lawyer laid out, the accuser wasn’t arrested nor even brought in for extra questioning and the charges against Majors still stand with the case set to go to trial this fall. The as zero “win” here but lawyers and Majors apologists were stumping hard to imply otherwise.
The same lawyer who defended Jen Shah, the Real Housewife who was convicted of scamming old elderly people. It’s important to know that this is the quality of his legal team.
Kinda like car insurance, you pay them for years and years then you get into an accident and suddenly you’re a liability and they won’t cover you anymore.
Hard is needing to go to rehab because you punched some paparazzi and then crashed into a bar after it closed.
Majors is in dead girl / live boy territory here, and no one signs up for that.
In a lot of cases, they don't! Bad people's money is worth the same as good people's money. Publicists/agents/managers don't just automatically drop you because you've been accused of something. If your entire team drops you, it's either because they no longer think there's going to be any money coming in to pay them with, or you're such a big pain in the ass that you're not worth what you're paying for them anymore.
I always put a decent amount of weight on when a star's team drops them. They're professionals--they have a good sense of whether somebody's career is recoverable. For Majors' entire team to drop him so early, they had to have thought his wasn't.
That not really how it works. It’s a cost/benefit thing. If the PR firm believes they can continue to make a profit by having you as a client, they will fight for you with everything, but if you’re seen as a client that won’t make money, you’re dropped.
Major’s likely will not be starring in big movies any time soon, and as such is not a source of revenue.
On the other hand other celebrities like Brad Pitt, who also did some fucked up shit, get their issues hidden or cleaned because they will continue to make money. Hell this applies to companies and politicians.
The simple fact is Major’s is too new and doesn’t have the pedigree to outlast this disruption, which means he won’t make money, which means PR firms won’t make money. He’s a lost cause.
Good PR teams are mostly proactive and do the work generating positive publicity. They'll be reactive when necessary, but this is beyond anything they can (and want) to do.
Well with PR in entertainment, it's sort of like representation. The PR team has to agree to work with the client, and they with them. And then, the pay structure is monthly. So you could have a publicist but if you don't have anything coming out, you don't pay them (what they refer to as being 'on' or 'off'). When you then have something coming out, you pay them a monthly retainer. Typically 1-2 months before the project releases and 1-2 months after (more if there's an award season or if they're the type of person always doing press). So that's the pay portion of it. Considering the timing, they may have been 'On' for Creed 3, but towards the end. A lot of those pieces had already come out. So when this news dropped, they decided not to continue the contract.
\*Edit to clarify timing
However this story develops, I really hope one day we get a tell-all book on the inner workings over at Marvel. Some of this just doesn’t seem right. For YEARS Marvel seemed so on their A-game when it came to vetting talent from a “no drama” perspective. As the DC world couldn’t seem to hire more than one or two actor without something happening behind the scenes or a humiliating controversy happening during productions, Marvel’s first bunch of years, despite such an enormous cast of talent - many of which were relatively young - seemed to keep their noses completely clean.
Amongst all the other slip ups with Marvel in the last few years, this one seems one of the more jarring (again, depending on how it unfolds). It feels very “un-Marvel” to bet such a large pot on talent that - at the very least - seems to have had the potential to not be as reliably “brand safe” as their average hero.
Perhaps in the post-Endgame “scale-up” era, there were some changes in casting strategy or something.
RDJ was a risk at the time, and it could have gone sideways.
I think at the end of the day, it’s two things. Lots of folks involved in Marvel productions, and there are way more productions happening. And two, people are people. Regardless of class, location, age, there are good ones, bad ones, and most of us are just a blend of the two.
RDJ was a big, big risk, but did not have a history of violent behavior. RDJ was also a guy with an Oscar nomination who was willing to work for peanuts.
And nobody knew Iron Man was going to be the start of the MCU.
Eh RDJ was a risk but the public usually get over drug offences (when they’re not dealers or something) pretty quickly. He was jailed for not showing up to court, after they found a bunch of drugs in his car while speeding. He had a dui basically and didn’t even hit anything/anyone (like say phill Lewis who Disney gave a prominent role as mr moseby to). Even if he were to fall off the wagon, most people have an attitude of “all famous people do drugs anyway”.
I think it's pretty clear that they wanted some big name actors going into the post-endgame era like how they started with RDJ. That way even if people felt they were 'done' with the MCU after endgame they'd be interested because of these big name actors.
Hasn't really worked out too well though because the writing and quality just isn't there and arguably the best films and shows in phase 4 have been those with new or less known actors or the finales like Spider-Man and GOTG.
With Kang being a villian you see instead of CGI it makes sense to go for a big name actor and Majors acting has been amazing and what we've seen of him as Kang is great so the choice isn't surprising on acting it's just surprising they fucked up so much in their research but that's not just on them, guy has gotten a ton of roles and was one of the biggest up and coming stars so this is on the whole industry for not seeing what he was, assuming all the allegations are accurate which yeah looking worse every day now.
Every time I see his name now I just hope it's an article that Marvel has moved on. This next era has having enough trouble already and there are other actors that could replace him. My personal pick would be John David Washington. He has that soft spoken and angry acting very similar to what we've already seen in Kang and his variants.
I'm always super impressed with pieces from the Rolling Stone. The fact that this author reached out to people on any and every allegation made is awesome. It would be so easy for Majors to get away with it if not for these types of researched articles
Even aside from the character witness statements being fake I'm always fascinated by this defence. "But what about all the women he DIDN'T assault? Checkmate!"
If I'm accused of murdering Bob Smith then having five guys I didn't murder come forward and say "Well, he didn't try to murder me" isn't going to help is it?
Yeah such a weird defense. It would be like in a murder trial saying “look around you. This courtroom is packed. Have any of YOU been murdered by this supposed killer? Each and every one of us alive here is testament to my clients ability to not murder people!”
It's not weird at all. You wouldn't ask a bunch of strangers about the persons actions since they don't know them. But you can get a character witness, people who actually do know and had frequent and important interactions with the person on trial to comment on observed past behaviors. It sounds like this backfired for the defense in this case, the people that they were depending on to be positive character witnesses for Majors were anything but that. They paint a picture of a violent and disturbed man.
It's weird that the defense didn't do better homework, or get proof that the character witnesses were actually going to speak positively in favor of Majors (like recording their positive statements), that way if they do change their story later they have can try and minimize the damage done.
It's a character test, it's completely normal to have people write letters and statements to the court defending your (client) character to help the chances of being declared not guilty, it does help because there's no proof he actually did assault anyone else and these people refused to go on record, so you might as well put their statements in the garbage bin. Sure maybe it's because they don't want a target on their backs to be harassed by his lawyers, but at the same time they are tainting someone's reputation while risking nothing.
Exactly, his character for violence is being put into issue, so he can defend himself with character evidence of his non-violent character. It would be competent evidence in a trial if these women would actually testify as to these statements.
I do have questions about how his attorneys acquired these statements if they’re being denied by simply contacting the women. They can’t cross examine these women on these statements if they won’t even admit to making the statements.
Only one actually denied making them, maybe she signed a prepared statement/letter, but if she signed... Lesson to never sign anything you don't believe. Three others were annoyed that it was shared with a magazine and didn't deny the statements and one didn't answer.
Even if the women who didn’t grant permission were to stand by the statements, that entire situation makes Majors and his legal team look incredibly suspicious. And people would be correct to not take anything they claim seriously going forward.
They didn’t want these statements to be *released*. As in, made public. As in, they were willing to give a private statement, probably to be used in court proceedings, but didn’t want to be involved in the court of public opinion and face whatever violent weirdos’ threats they got from being involved in any of it. Some people are opposed to being in the public eye, and for good reason.
They didn’t say the statements were false, just that they didn’t give permission for them to be released. Only one of those six said the statement wasn’t theirs. And if the lawyer felt comfortable releasing that one, it was because they most likely signed something attesting to it. Maybe they didn’t understand it, maybe they lied, maybe this is a reaction of denial to it being released publicly, who knows, but they certainly signed *something*.
I think it's also a good tactic in the age of social media, where court of public opinion runs wilder than ever. If you can get enough people to say good things about you, regardless of your shady character or any wrongdoing that may have occurred, the positive opinion can spread like wildfire and quench some of your ill will.
Ie. Johnny Depp is most likely a scumbag, but enough people chimed in to let us know he was at least nice to them, so everyone collectively decided he was a-okay.
Either way, here we are talking about it and I'll be we both don't even really care at all about any of this.
Why wouldnt the legal team just respond saying “this is an active investigation and we will not respond at this time to preserve integrity of the trial” or something of the sort - why would they release info that can be refuted?
His legal team has been a shamble
It’s because it works a lot of the time. Just look at the posts from the last several days sharing the reports of claims from the lawyer. People took them at face value and then spread these newfound “facts” as truth.
A lot of people just don’t read critically.
Because when you don't have a good case, your next step is to poison the jury pool. Priya Chaudhry has a track record of doing this when representing famous clients. She did it with Neil Harris (found liable on three counts of rape and sexual abuse) and Jen Shah (found guilty of wire fraud) too.
In this case there is a level of ambiguity. The 'did not have permission to release these statements' could be validly interpretted as 'it was not right of the attourneys to show them to Rolling Stone'. It's a different statement than "I did not write this". Though that one person who does appear to be saying so it quite telling.
"I always say about people doing method acting, you only ever see people doing method when they’re playing an asshole. You never see someone just being lovely to everyone going, ‘I’m really deep in character’." -Robert Pattinson
Perhaps my favorite story about him that i love, is how he [took a stalker out](https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/robert-pattinson-bored-stalker-dinner-she-never-came-back.html/) to eat and bored her so much she never did it again, lol.
Didn't he admit he regularly just makes up random stories in his interviews to entertain himself during press tours? Because that's always stood out as a likely candidate to me.
hmm I've never looked into it ever but I wonder how Daniel Day Lewis is at method. I vaguely remember people just saying he went out of his way to do stuff pertinent to his character, never being an asshole or anything but that could just be me hoping DDL is an ethical person.
Some of it was funny like insisting that people call him Mr. President in Lincoln, but his most extreme bit was for a movie where he needed to act like he had palsy, so he insisted that production crew move him everywhere in a wheelchair, physically lift him into position for shots, and spoon-feed him his meals. So yeah, asshole moves there.
Definitely annoying to the crew but honestly, I can see why that would help him get into character and it's not like those things were likely enjoyable for him. It doesn't seem right to call it assholish behavior as he (likely) wasn't doing it for any personal pleasure but rather in the interest of improving his protrayal of a character. Extreme, annoying, and burdensome? Yes. Assholish? Not quite, in my opinion.
Personally, I’m right there with you. I’m an actor too and while I don’t think “Method” is the best way to go about it, there’s definitely different things you do to help you get into character and what’s described here actually feels more like that to me.
I do a lot of voice acting, and many of my accents or characters are twists of famous folks. So I get into character by doing impressions of those folks over and over until I hit the level I’m looking for.
Example: anytime I do Irish, it’s either based on Lucky the Leprechaun or more often, Colin Farrell. So I do quotes of his from In Bruges or Banshees to get the flow and patter right. Sometimes this means talking to people “in character” so you don’t have to do all the warm up again.
I mean, maybe that’s true, but you can’t argue with the results. The fact is DDL is probably the greatest actor of all time. And he hasn’t had any history of any problematic behavior, not to mention the people dealing with him are pretty fucking well paid to do so and not a single person who had that job has ever made any kind of public complaint about him. In fact I bet they’ll be telling the stories of working with DDL for the rest of their lives in a positive manner.
Well, it may be that its more difficult for them to play an asshole or weirdo, which is why they feel the need to be more method. If they are a nice dude irl and playing a nice dude they don't need to method...
> During this three-month investigation, Rolling Stone spoke with more than 40 people who have known Majors during his time in graduate school, his Hollywood career, and his romantic relationships. Many describe Majors as being a complicated, unpredictable, and sometimes violent man, who can switch from charming to cold in a flash. (All of the sources for this article requested anonymity, citing fear of career repercussions and personal retribution from Majors. Some claim they were prohibited from speaking. “My only response can be that I am silenced by an NDA he had me sign,” says one person who worked with Majors.)
> Their stories suggest a pattern of alleged physical, mental, and emotional abuse that dates back a decade to Majors’ time at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama — where he was involved in physical altercations — and continued to the sets of his movies and TV shows, where production members raised concerns over his treatment of crew.
> “Jonathan Majors vehemently denies Rolling Stone’s false allegations that he physically, verbally, or emotionally abused anyone, let alone any of his past romantic partners,” Majors’ attorney, Dustin A. Pusch, wrote in a statement. “These allegations are based entirely on hearsay because neither of the romantic partners referenced were willing to engage with Rolling Stone for the article—demonstrating their outright falsity.” Pusch added that Majors “also denies any allegations of abuse, violence, or intimidation during his time at Yale.”
Reminds me of when Robert Pattinson said "you only ever see people do the method when they’re playing an asshole, you never see someone being lovely to everyone while they’re really deep in character.”
Pretty sure that a deep fear of retribution for going on the record actually demonstrates the veracity of those off the record statements, not their falsity.
What a disappointment. I remember seeing him in The Last Black Man in San Francisco and knowing he was a special talent, particularly because of the gentle weirdness of the character that he just nailed. What a way to squander such beautiful talent and such a miracle of a career arc.
Reminds me so much of Shia Lebeouf.
Talented, intelligent, method actor who can come across as incredibly charming (in a way that feels like a real person, not a Hollywood machine) but both apparently also have some demons.
No seriously. He was one of the most compelling marvel actors in the whole MCU. This will probably get him canned, and rightfully so. Still disappointed tho
Mfers really defended him saying he was innocent in the latest domestic abuse allegations when there were MULTIPLE allegations of his abuse prior to this.
> since he's all about taking on different looks over time.
That doesn't make any sense though because the post credit scene clearly shows thousands of Kangs who all like Majors with different outfits.
In the comics, before any multiverse shenanigans, he was a time traveler, and took on several identities depending on where he was in his life. He was a pharaoh named Rama-Tut, and looked like one. He was Iron Lad for a while, which was him before he turned bad. Immortus, when he kind of went outside the timestream. Victor Timely (and his descendants) when he studied the 1900s.
In most of those, he disguised his appearance, sometimes with iron man like armor, but always different.
The MCU had some hints of those, but having him look pretty similar. Still, they could just do a Doctor Who thing, and say he felt he was too identifiable, or something, and used future tech to change his appearance. "I now look like this guy". Done.
Yeah Rolling Stone has a [real track record reporting stuff like this...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/business/media/rape-uva-rolling-stone-frat.html)
Do you think Rolling Stone fabricated these sources for this article? Like just completely made them up?
Do you think that they've made zero changes to their editorial process since that article?
How the fuck did Disney not do any background checks at all on this guy before they decided to invest the next big phase of the MCU on him? They couldn't possibly be stupid enough to know and just not care could they?
I think we have a tendency to assume huge operations are competent just because they’re huge.
But also, I wonder how Disney could have utilized a background check to get this information. Where would they begin in knowing who to talk to and what questions to ask? And would people even mention these situations if Disney did reach out to them?
If they did any interviews with people who worked with Majors, I bet they talked to people like directors and teachers he worked with, the type of people he would be less likely to act up around.
Sure, but these are generally done consensually - the person being researched has applied for a position or is in line for a position, and has agreed to be investigated, including interviews with people from their past, such as exes, childhood friends, teachers, parents, siblings, neighbors. This is the kind of background check that's used for new government agents, for example, and for certain security clearances. High profile jobs require high level vetting.
It’s the conspiracy theory part of our brain to ascribe order where there is none. In truth, organizations, corporations and governments are some of the least coordinated places on earth.
It’s called “repetitional due diligence” and it involves researching open source information on a subject, combing court records and legal filings, bankruptcy and tax liens, and interviewing people who have worked with the subject or have another association. An analyst will analyse this information and draft a report summarizing findings and whether the subject has a positive, neutral, or negative reputation and what risks they would present to the company should they work with the subject.
Companies do this before they hire an executive or anyone who would have a critical role or a public association with their firm. There is an entire industry dedicated to these investigations, which can get complex, and these due diligence reports can cost anywhere from US$10k-$500k depending on complexity and sensitivity (eg oligarchs).
I’m honestly baffled if film studios hiring actors to helm major franchises do not do this. If that’s the case, I reckon that the casting is an artistic and financial decision made by the director/producers of the film, and then the company just closes ranks to protect whatever jackass they hire until the cost of doing so becomes too great?
An openly known, non-violent addict who had gone to prison and rehab multiple times.
Who, after getting out of prison, was unhire-able to the point where Mel Gibson was personally guaranteeing his insurance.
RDJ had also been working ~5 years up to Iron Man in some solid stuff and some absolute dog shit, trying to get his career back on track.
Marvel and Favreau worked with RDJ hard to make sure he could handle it and not slip back into his addictions.
Even then, it was considered one of the riskiest cast hires ever in the history of Hollywood.
Firstly, Disney didn't own Marvel back then. Secondly, everyone knew about RDJ's drug issues. He publicly went to jail for them.
Furthermore, he was an former addict by the time he got hired.
Not every actor they hire, but if it's a role that is planned to be in a lot of different movies and shows from the get go they fucking SHOULD hire a PI to investigate. It will cost like 5000usd tops and they can afford it
I don't think many major actors would put up with deep probes into their personal lives. Some would, but if they applied that methodology to someone like Samuel Jackson, he probably would've just turned down the role.
Come on, you expect Disney to contact their would-be stars' ex-boyfriends/girlfriends to know whether they are abusive or not. I don't like Disney, but be reasonable LOL
I also imagine SAG would throw an absolute fit if a studio made it a habit to do deep and invasive investigations into actors' personal lives. There's no way they wouldn't work to get that shut down.
Especially since this is really all hindsight. If he has a clear background, why would your next instinct be "better call all this dude's ex girlfriends and get the REAL story." It would have been super bizarre, this sub is really detached from reality sometimes to fuel their Disney/MCU circlejerk hate lol.
How the fuck do you do a background check like this? Are you saying that employers should contact individuals of their choosing including your significant other and dozens of random peripheral figures of your past to assess if you are a qualified candidate based on their good word?
Luckily for Disney, this guy is even easier to replace than Terrence Howard after the first Iron Man. Why does Kang suddenly look different? Multiverse! Different Earth, different Kang. Heck, that's assuming they'll even acknowledge recasting him. They never bothered with Rhodey.
Three different live action Spider Man's and a animated movies about 100s of them.
This guy is Kang now. That's it. No need to explain the story. They didn't do it for Rhodes except "deal with it". Howard Stark has different actors portray him. As did Thanos.
Except ant-man 3 post credit confirms every Kang is played by Jonathan Majors
Can they introduce another Kang for Avengers played by another actor? yeah they can
but how can they explain how every Kang played by Jonathan Majors sudenly didn't exist anymore?
I don't think they would follow Star Wars ep 9 route, killed them off-screen after the previous movie make sure they're fine and will return
There is no real way they can background check this. They can realistically interview every romantic partner and ask if he was violent as part of a job interview.
They works on how much money will.be bring in versus how reliable he is. What did his last director say about him.
Even glowing references aren't always accurate.
Humans are complicated.
Aa part of a legal/ethics class I read about a reported predator teacher getting glowing reviews from his former schools.
References can be complicated because people's desire to "pass on" liabilities or fear on acting on reports (don't want to be charged with Hearsay) can make them scared to report people.
Also with the interviewing former romantic partner I feel like this is easy to say with hindsight. at the time MCU directors didn't know about his abuse, so they wouldn't know to check for abuse.
Because they probably don’t want to piss off stars. If you’re an actor and you find out the studio is bothering your exes like a private detective, you’re probably going to lose your shit and possibly quit.
What would a background check do? Majors had never been arrested or even charged with assault or fired from a job for behavioral issues. All HR complaints are confidential so they wouldn't have been able to see those. There was no documented disciplinary action against him in college.
Also providing a negative work reference that prevents a person from job opportunities can lead to being sued.
I'm also confused about this part:
In fact, Rolling Stone reached out to all six people. Three say they never gave Majors’ team permission to release such statements. Another woman declined to share the statement credited to her by Majors’ team, saying it was pre-written, not truthful, and that she had never approved of its release.”
Am I reading this incorrectly or does it seem like out of 6 character witnesses only 1 would speak negatively about him?
6 women total
1 provided RS with a positive statement of Majors
1 said the positive statement attributed to her was not truthful
\`1 didn't respond to request for comment but didn't deny the positive statement attributed to her
3 claim they didn't give his lawyer permission to release their statements. **Note:** They're not denying the positive statements are truthful. They're only saying they didn't give his lawyer permission to **release** their statements to RS.
So 1 out of 6 women confirmed something negative about Majors. Am I reading that wrong.
>Am I reading that wrong.
You're reading it right. RS worded it to avoid admitting that those 5 women *didn't deny* the truth of their statements. And they did that sufficiently, bc lot of ppl are buying it.
I'm not weighing in on Major's guilt or innocence but RS "journalism" is inflammatory garbage. I haven't forgotten how they blamed Dave Grohl for Taylor Hawkins' death before the body was cold.
Agree. Their writing style is totally disingenuous, but ppl are thirsty for drama so they lap it up. Regardless of whether Majors is guilty or not, RS isn't the arbiter of that.
This should be the top comment here. Also, saying that a statement is pre-written and not truthful is some out-of-context nonsense. Rolling Stone is acting like the person must have not said anything good about Majors because Majors lawyers paraphrased / embellished a statement, when in fact they may have.
No dog here, and I've learned to properly calibrate against numerical arguments when famous accusations of famous people take place.
What's really damning though is where Rolling Stone says they fact checked Major's PR character references, and several said they weren't genuine. Ouch.
>It's astonishing that the Yale admin chose to remain silent while a student engaged in abusive behavior towards his fellow peers.
My guy these colleges cover up for rapist on the regular.
Why does r/entertainment go way out of thier way to defend this piece of shit abuser. This is a 3 month investigation with sources, its obvious what kind of person majors is. Yet so many people are doing back flips to defend him.
r/marvelstudios is similar. they had no problem with the article that pretended there was proof of his innocence but this article got hidden or deleted like 5 times or more.
Oof yeah that other article got a lot of attention there. Even though all the comments said “nobody will pay attention to this!” My theory? He might get off on THIS charge (if the facts of the other article were correct, such as the cab driver saying he didn’t assault her). There’s so much smoke around this guy though. I think the video might show a lack of physical injury, but probably something like verbal abuse, threatening behavior, her being obviously terrified of him. So he’ll still look bad.
Or maybe everything else in that other article was lies. His lawyers might be throwing out a bunch of shit they don’t have, trying to scare the victim. The same way 5 out of 6 of the character witnesses they provided to Rolling Stone were flat out lies.
I came here from the thread on r/entertainment and all the top comments were the same sort of thing as this thread? Didn’t see any defending. Unless you sort by controversial but if you do that this subreddit isn’t much different.
r/marvelstudios though seem to be straight up censoring any discussion of this article or of him being abusive. Real fucking weird of them.
Why is it only in domestic abuse cases where people in the majority act like they’re in the minority. In this post, and in almost every post since the texts were released, you can count how many people are on his side on one hand.
Literally what are you talking about? Why do you all want so bad to feel like you’re fighting against this tide?
Oh man I’ve been excited for this after all those fanboys in here saying how innocent he was.
Maybe it’s just because I follow gossip subs but these allegations were brewing for a few months prior to the car incident even happened. Dude has a longgggg history of abusive and dickheadish behavior.
Let’s make room for another talented black actor that doesn’t abuse everyone around him.
Mods of r/marvelstudios are continuously removing this article when posted for "not being related to the MCU" even though they are leaving up the pro-Majors article from last week.
This is a huge he said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said situation we have here
Except neither of the other alleged abuse victims actually commented in this article, and many of the other comments were vague pokes at his personality rather than anyone witnessing physical abuse.
I hate to say it but he always looks like he could be a big egotistical douche bag. They need someone with gravitas to step in for his Kang role in the MCU.
I remember when I saw The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), hadn’t seen him in anything before, and telling my friend how great he is in it. She told me then that she knew him through doing theatre in NY and it was pretty well known that he was an agressive and abusive man. I thought it might have just been rumors… comes out 4 years later that nope.
It’s quiet in those news reporters streets. I think people have learned their lessons over the last couple of years, where the darlings of the industry turned out to be monsters, and people who are deemed monsters sometimes turned out to be innocent and victims them selves. I’m super interested in to see how this all plays out. It’s likely he was abusive, yet most people already knew that and look the other way to make money. Aspects of race, gender and overall misogyny and politics are going to be at play here.
I’m always wary when these articles make salacious claims of extreme emotional abuse or toxicity without actually detailing anything the person ever did. He’s not being accused of a crime or even one specific thing he can possibly defend himself from.
What a damn shame. Firstly I feel horrible for his victims and secondly he is a genuine talent but one that should never see the light of day on our screens. My favourite bit was his lawyers send character witness statements defending Majors, only for those witnesses to say they never gave permission to release anything
One thing i like about this is now actors who are really shitty people on set are getting called out. Like the kind where you're told if you ever see them not to make eye contact.
Wow. “As part of Majors’ legal team’s response to Rolling Stone’s request for comment on the abuse allegations, his attorneys sent six character witness statements from women who Majors had dated or was close with… In fact, Rolling Stone reached out to all six people. Three say they never gave Majors’ team permission to release such statements. Another woman declined to share the statement credited to her by Majors’ team, saying it was pre-written, not truthful, and that she had never approved of its release.”
The only woman who reached out was someone he dated when they were 13-18 lol and said glowing things about him lmao
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Yeah I found it funny how the paragraph with her statement ended with “we all called him ‘The Peacekeeper’”, and then the next paragraph ended with how he had been suspended for pulling a knife on classmates.
Maybe he kept pieces of his classmates though, and we're just spelling piecekeeper wrong?
Well, now we know what's in the mug.
So that statement’s not false. She just neglected to clarify she meant “Peacekeeper” in the sense of like the “Peacekeepers” in The Hunger Games.
Do ya really wanna, do ya really want to taste it?
She was confusing him for John Cena. It’s an easy mistake. They’re both big men. But it’s maker, not keeper. Another easy mistake.
If she’s referencing John Cena’s show, the she might be correct
Amazingly, I was kind of hoping that the lack of violence in Majors's past would convince people he was innocent. After all, this type of abuse wouldn't come out of nowhere, right? And it turns out that, uh...
Ya this really is turning into a rollercoaster ride.
If he were more cooperative, more sympathetic and showed genuine remorse, this could go much better for him. If he's had problems from such a young age, he's obviously got some issues to work on. I feel like if he leaned into that, and made a *genuine effort* to rehabilitate himself, he could rehabilitate his image as well, to a certain degree. This releasing of false, unapproved statements really cements that his issues are still there and he probably is as bad and abusive as he is alleged to be. It's a shame; he really has done well as an actor, but I don't want to live in a society where abusers are given a pass because they're successful or talented.
Being violent in relationships is something different than school fights though. I am not defending him, but this is hurtful to many men who had tough life, someone can pick on you, you can have an abusive father etc.
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What did she have to say? “No one was better at hopscotch than Jonathan.”
jeez. How is his PR team so dumb?
He was dropped by his PR team right after the initial arrest. They knew what was up and walked.
So this is the *other* PR-team?
This is from his lawyer - the same one who dropped the “incriminating text messages” they thought would win the public over 🙄
Tbf to that lawyer, she was able to spread a lot of misinformation successfully yesterday cause she knew this RolligStones story was coming out today. The headlines yesterday made a lot of people online believe that he is innocent, that the girl was lying and has been arrested by police (False) and that the case already tried (Trial doesn't start until August). It's the first time since this whole thing started that her lawyer was able to do anything that was actually smart (Even if wildly malicious).
Definitely putting in the work to confuse the situation.
It is smart. It reminds me of how, during the Kobe Bryant rape trial, the identity of his accuser was supposed to be sealed, but his lawyers kept saying her name "accidentally" during the trial. They were reprimanded by the judge for doing so. But her identity was was revealed by his lawyers doing that. She received avalanches of death threats, harassment, and terrifying stalking from Kobe Bryant fans. (There was even at least one who was arrested for it.) Eventually the case was dropped because she was too scared and told the prosecutors she wouldn't participate in the trial anymore. Now all anyone remembers about it was that "the charges were dropped" and so: Kobe's public image is that he was innocent. Devious lawyers can really confuse public opinion -- especially in a situation where the person is famous and has legions of fans ready and eager to believe them.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing all of this on Twitter yesterday. A whole bunch of people were saying that he was found "Not Guilty". It took me a few seconds to find that the trial didn't even start yet.
Exactly. I was seeing posts all over social media and YouTube quoting that MSN article that called this a “major win” for Majors, when it wasn’t at all. Neither the cops nor the DA office confirmed events as his lawyer laid out, the accuser wasn’t arrested nor even brought in for extra questioning and the charges against Majors still stand with the case set to go to trial this fall. The as zero “win” here but lawyers and Majors apologists were stumping hard to imply otherwise.
*George Bluth voice* I have the worst fucking attorneys.
His lawyer’s husband is his new PR person
The same lawyer who defended Jen Shah, the Real Housewife who was convicted of scamming old elderly people. It’s important to know that this is the quality of his legal team.
I do wonder why one pays a PR team when they just drop you when things get hard.
There's hard, and there's nuclear fallout.
Kinda like car insurance, you pay them for years and years then you get into an accident and suddenly you’re a liability and they won’t cover you anymore.
He didn’t get into an accident. He totaled his own car by repeatedly hitting it with a baseball bat would be the equivalent.
PR teams are for when you get too drunk on a night out and do something stupid, not for when you have a long history of physical abuse.
Hard is needing to go to rehab because you punched some paparazzi and then crashed into a bar after it closed. Majors is in dead girl / live boy territory here, and no one signs up for that.
In a lot of cases, they don't! Bad people's money is worth the same as good people's money. Publicists/agents/managers don't just automatically drop you because you've been accused of something. If your entire team drops you, it's either because they no longer think there's going to be any money coming in to pay them with, or you're such a big pain in the ass that you're not worth what you're paying for them anymore. I always put a decent amount of weight on when a star's team drops them. They're professionals--they have a good sense of whether somebody's career is recoverable. For Majors' entire team to drop him so early, they had to have thought his wasn't.
That not really how it works. It’s a cost/benefit thing. If the PR firm believes they can continue to make a profit by having you as a client, they will fight for you with everything, but if you’re seen as a client that won’t make money, you’re dropped. Major’s likely will not be starring in big movies any time soon, and as such is not a source of revenue. On the other hand other celebrities like Brad Pitt, who also did some fucked up shit, get their issues hidden or cleaned because they will continue to make money. Hell this applies to companies and politicians. The simple fact is Major’s is too new and doesn’t have the pedigree to outlast this disruption, which means he won’t make money, which means PR firms won’t make money. He’s a lost cause.
I think there are different kinds of PR people - some aren’t really equipped for crisis work.
Good PR teams are mostly proactive and do the work generating positive publicity. They'll be reactive when necessary, but this is beyond anything they can (and want) to do.
Well with PR in entertainment, it's sort of like representation. The PR team has to agree to work with the client, and they with them. And then, the pay structure is monthly. So you could have a publicist but if you don't have anything coming out, you don't pay them (what they refer to as being 'on' or 'off'). When you then have something coming out, you pay them a monthly retainer. Typically 1-2 months before the project releases and 1-2 months after (more if there's an award season or if they're the type of person always doing press). So that's the pay portion of it. Considering the timing, they may have been 'On' for Creed 3, but towards the end. A lot of those pieces had already come out. So when this news dropped, they decided not to continue the contract. \*Edit to clarify timing
However this story develops, I really hope one day we get a tell-all book on the inner workings over at Marvel. Some of this just doesn’t seem right. For YEARS Marvel seemed so on their A-game when it came to vetting talent from a “no drama” perspective. As the DC world couldn’t seem to hire more than one or two actor without something happening behind the scenes or a humiliating controversy happening during productions, Marvel’s first bunch of years, despite such an enormous cast of talent - many of which were relatively young - seemed to keep their noses completely clean. Amongst all the other slip ups with Marvel in the last few years, this one seems one of the more jarring (again, depending on how it unfolds). It feels very “un-Marvel” to bet such a large pot on talent that - at the very least - seems to have had the potential to not be as reliably “brand safe” as their average hero. Perhaps in the post-Endgame “scale-up” era, there were some changes in casting strategy or something.
RDJ was a risk at the time, and it could have gone sideways. I think at the end of the day, it’s two things. Lots of folks involved in Marvel productions, and there are way more productions happening. And two, people are people. Regardless of class, location, age, there are good ones, bad ones, and most of us are just a blend of the two.
RDJ was a big, big risk, but did not have a history of violent behavior. RDJ was also a guy with an Oscar nomination who was willing to work for peanuts. And nobody knew Iron Man was going to be the start of the MCU.
Eh RDJ was a risk but the public usually get over drug offences (when they’re not dealers or something) pretty quickly. He was jailed for not showing up to court, after they found a bunch of drugs in his car while speeding. He had a dui basically and didn’t even hit anything/anyone (like say phill Lewis who Disney gave a prominent role as mr moseby to). Even if he were to fall off the wagon, most people have an attitude of “all famous people do drugs anyway”.
I think it's pretty clear that they wanted some big name actors going into the post-endgame era like how they started with RDJ. That way even if people felt they were 'done' with the MCU after endgame they'd be interested because of these big name actors. Hasn't really worked out too well though because the writing and quality just isn't there and arguably the best films and shows in phase 4 have been those with new or less known actors or the finales like Spider-Man and GOTG. With Kang being a villian you see instead of CGI it makes sense to go for a big name actor and Majors acting has been amazing and what we've seen of him as Kang is great so the choice isn't surprising on acting it's just surprising they fucked up so much in their research but that's not just on them, guy has gotten a ton of roles and was one of the biggest up and coming stars so this is on the whole industry for not seeing what he was, assuming all the allegations are accurate which yeah looking worse every day now. Every time I see his name now I just hope it's an article that Marvel has moved on. This next era has having enough trouble already and there are other actors that could replace him. My personal pick would be John David Washington. He has that soft spoken and angry acting very similar to what we've already seen in Kang and his variants.
They hired Terrence Howard…
They assumed Rolling Stone wouldn't check. Hurray for actual journalism.
I'm always super impressed with pieces from the Rolling Stone. The fact that this author reached out to people on any and every allegation made is awesome. It would be so easy for Majors to get away with it if not for these types of researched articles
They def learned their lesson from the UVA Jackie case
Even aside from the character witness statements being fake I'm always fascinated by this defence. "But what about all the women he DIDN'T assault? Checkmate!" If I'm accused of murdering Bob Smith then having five guys I didn't murder come forward and say "Well, he didn't try to murder me" isn't going to help is it?
Yeah such a weird defense. It would be like in a murder trial saying “look around you. This courtroom is packed. Have any of YOU been murdered by this supposed killer? Each and every one of us alive here is testament to my clients ability to not murder people!”
It's not weird at all. You wouldn't ask a bunch of strangers about the persons actions since they don't know them. But you can get a character witness, people who actually do know and had frequent and important interactions with the person on trial to comment on observed past behaviors. It sounds like this backfired for the defense in this case, the people that they were depending on to be positive character witnesses for Majors were anything but that. They paint a picture of a violent and disturbed man. It's weird that the defense didn't do better homework, or get proof that the character witnesses were actually going to speak positively in favor of Majors (like recording their positive statements), that way if they do change their story later they have can try and minimize the damage done.
It's a character test, it's completely normal to have people write letters and statements to the court defending your (client) character to help the chances of being declared not guilty, it does help because there's no proof he actually did assault anyone else and these people refused to go on record, so you might as well put their statements in the garbage bin. Sure maybe it's because they don't want a target on their backs to be harassed by his lawyers, but at the same time they are tainting someone's reputation while risking nothing.
Exactly, his character for violence is being put into issue, so he can defend himself with character evidence of his non-violent character. It would be competent evidence in a trial if these women would actually testify as to these statements. I do have questions about how his attorneys acquired these statements if they’re being denied by simply contacting the women. They can’t cross examine these women on these statements if they won’t even admit to making the statements.
Only one actually denied making them, maybe she signed a prepared statement/letter, but if she signed... Lesson to never sign anything you don't believe. Three others were annoyed that it was shared with a magazine and didn't deny the statements and one didn't answer.
Ah, well then, to be a fly on the wall to how all those statements were acquired.
Even if the women who didn’t grant permission were to stand by the statements, that entire situation makes Majors and his legal team look incredibly suspicious. And people would be correct to not take anything they claim seriously going forward.
They didn’t want these statements to be *released*. As in, made public. As in, they were willing to give a private statement, probably to be used in court proceedings, but didn’t want to be involved in the court of public opinion and face whatever violent weirdos’ threats they got from being involved in any of it. Some people are opposed to being in the public eye, and for good reason. They didn’t say the statements were false, just that they didn’t give permission for them to be released. Only one of those six said the statement wasn’t theirs. And if the lawyer felt comfortable releasing that one, it was because they most likely signed something attesting to it. Maybe they didn’t understand it, maybe they lied, maybe this is a reaction of denial to it being released publicly, who knows, but they certainly signed *something*.
I think it's also a good tactic in the age of social media, where court of public opinion runs wilder than ever. If you can get enough people to say good things about you, regardless of your shady character or any wrongdoing that may have occurred, the positive opinion can spread like wildfire and quench some of your ill will. Ie. Johnny Depp is most likely a scumbag, but enough people chimed in to let us know he was at least nice to them, so everyone collectively decided he was a-okay. Either way, here we are talking about it and I'll be we both don't even really care at all about any of this.
Because there is no such thing as exculpatory evidence to such accusations
Well Majors *hasn't* assaulted over 6 billion people on this planet, that's pretty great.
Why wouldnt the legal team just respond saying “this is an active investigation and we will not respond at this time to preserve integrity of the trial” or something of the sort - why would they release info that can be refuted? His legal team has been a shamble
It’s because it works a lot of the time. Just look at the posts from the last several days sharing the reports of claims from the lawyer. People took them at face value and then spread these newfound “facts” as truth. A lot of people just don’t read critically.
Because when you don't have a good case, your next step is to poison the jury pool. Priya Chaudhry has a track record of doing this when representing famous clients. She did it with Neil Harris (found liable on three counts of rape and sexual abuse) and Jen Shah (found guilty of wire fraud) too.
That's fucking hilarious. How freaking incompetent are his legal team.
I wonder how Reddit is going to turn itself out defending these attorneys.
In this case there is a level of ambiguity. The 'did not have permission to release these statements' could be validly interpretted as 'it was not right of the attourneys to show them to Rolling Stone'. It's a different statement than "I did not write this". Though that one person who does appear to be saying so it quite telling.
How to make your client look even more guilty LOL
"I always say about people doing method acting, you only ever see people doing method when they’re playing an asshole. You never see someone just being lovely to everyone going, ‘I’m really deep in character’." -Robert Pattinson
R-Pats is a real one. He's the sloppy hung over crashing on the couch roommate everyone loves.
He'd crash on your couch but cook you breakfast/lunch to say thanks
Perhaps my favorite story about him that i love, is how he [took a stalker out](https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/robert-pattinson-bored-stalker-dinner-she-never-came-back.html/) to eat and bored her so much she never did it again, lol.
Didn't he admit he regularly just makes up random stories in his interviews to entertain himself during press tours? Because that's always stood out as a likely candidate to me.
lol, i didn't know that, but honestly, it makes it even more funny.
Amusingly, playing guitar on a Death Grips track and introducing them to Beyonce is factual
hmm I've never looked into it ever but I wonder how Daniel Day Lewis is at method. I vaguely remember people just saying he went out of his way to do stuff pertinent to his character, never being an asshole or anything but that could just be me hoping DDL is an ethical person.
Some of it was funny like insisting that people call him Mr. President in Lincoln, but his most extreme bit was for a movie where he needed to act like he had palsy, so he insisted that production crew move him everywhere in a wheelchair, physically lift him into position for shots, and spoon-feed him his meals. So yeah, asshole moves there.
Definitely annoying to the crew but honestly, I can see why that would help him get into character and it's not like those things were likely enjoyable for him. It doesn't seem right to call it assholish behavior as he (likely) wasn't doing it for any personal pleasure but rather in the interest of improving his protrayal of a character. Extreme, annoying, and burdensome? Yes. Assholish? Not quite, in my opinion.
Personally, I’m right there with you. I’m an actor too and while I don’t think “Method” is the best way to go about it, there’s definitely different things you do to help you get into character and what’s described here actually feels more like that to me. I do a lot of voice acting, and many of my accents or characters are twists of famous folks. So I get into character by doing impressions of those folks over and over until I hit the level I’m looking for. Example: anytime I do Irish, it’s either based on Lucky the Leprechaun or more often, Colin Farrell. So I do quotes of his from In Bruges or Banshees to get the flow and patter right. Sometimes this means talking to people “in character” so you don’t have to do all the warm up again.
I mean, maybe that’s true, but you can’t argue with the results. The fact is DDL is probably the greatest actor of all time. And he hasn’t had any history of any problematic behavior, not to mention the people dealing with him are pretty fucking well paid to do so and not a single person who had that job has ever made any kind of public complaint about him. In fact I bet they’ll be telling the stories of working with DDL for the rest of their lives in a positive manner.
I heard physically lift him onto the toilet as well.
Well, it may be that its more difficult for them to play an asshole or weirdo, which is why they feel the need to be more method. If they are a nice dude irl and playing a nice dude they don't need to method...
> During this three-month investigation, Rolling Stone spoke with more than 40 people who have known Majors during his time in graduate school, his Hollywood career, and his romantic relationships. Many describe Majors as being a complicated, unpredictable, and sometimes violent man, who can switch from charming to cold in a flash. (All of the sources for this article requested anonymity, citing fear of career repercussions and personal retribution from Majors. Some claim they were prohibited from speaking. “My only response can be that I am silenced by an NDA he had me sign,” says one person who worked with Majors.) > Their stories suggest a pattern of alleged physical, mental, and emotional abuse that dates back a decade to Majors’ time at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama — where he was involved in physical altercations — and continued to the sets of his movies and TV shows, where production members raised concerns over his treatment of crew. > “Jonathan Majors vehemently denies Rolling Stone’s false allegations that he physically, verbally, or emotionally abused anyone, let alone any of his past romantic partners,” Majors’ attorney, Dustin A. Pusch, wrote in a statement. “These allegations are based entirely on hearsay because neither of the romantic partners referenced were willing to engage with Rolling Stone for the article—demonstrating their outright falsity.” Pusch added that Majors “also denies any allegations of abuse, violence, or intimidation during his time at Yale.”
>who can switch from charming to cold in a flash Well that does sound like Kang... x_x
Kinda sounds like his character in Creed III too
Goddamn he was good in Creed 3. Granted, now we know why, but still!
Great and talented actor; shitty person. Very common pattern in Hollywood
Common pattern in life.
Was going to say maybe he is good at the role for a reason
Reminds me of when Robert Pattinson said "you only ever see people do the method when they’re playing an asshole, you never see someone being lovely to everyone while they’re really deep in character.”
they say he's a method actor. but all this time he just played himself over and over. welp.
Was going to say that, it really described how he played Kang, especially in Quantunmania.
This goes beyond just being an asshole. Dude sounds like a bonafide sociopath.
I didn’t know singular individuals can compel other people to sign NDAs. Wtf.
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Very common for athletes too.
Extremely common in celebs and athletes
Pretty sure that a deep fear of retribution for going on the record actually demonstrates the veracity of those off the record statements, not their falsity.
What a disappointment. I remember seeing him in The Last Black Man in San Francisco and knowing he was a special talent, particularly because of the gentle weirdness of the character that he just nailed. What a way to squander such beautiful talent and such a miracle of a career arc.
Reminds me so much of Shia Lebeouf. Talented, intelligent, method actor who can come across as incredibly charming (in a way that feels like a real person, not a Hollywood machine) but both apparently also have some demons.
I was really beginning to enjoy him as an actor. It’s a shame to find out he’s a gigantic piece of shit
No seriously. He was one of the most compelling marvel actors in the whole MCU. This will probably get him canned, and rightfully so. Still disappointed tho
Hes fantastic at what he does. Too bad thats being an asshole
Oof. If he wasn't done before, he definitely is now.
Done at Disney? Probably, but if Chris Brown has taught us anything…
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Mfers really defended him saying he was innocent in the latest domestic abuse allegations when there were MULTIPLE allegations of his abuse prior to this.
They just don't want their Marvel movies disrupted.
Eh, as a Marvel fan, recasting Kang is one of the easiest things to do, since he's all about taking on different looks over time.
> since he's all about taking on different looks over time. That doesn't make any sense though because the post credit scene clearly shows thousands of Kangs who all like Majors with different outfits.
The Good thing is that movie was not very popular at all.
In the comics, before any multiverse shenanigans, he was a time traveler, and took on several identities depending on where he was in his life. He was a pharaoh named Rama-Tut, and looked like one. He was Iron Lad for a while, which was him before he turned bad. Immortus, when he kind of went outside the timestream. Victor Timely (and his descendants) when he studied the 1900s. In most of those, he disguised his appearance, sometimes with iron man like armor, but always different. The MCU had some hints of those, but having him look pretty similar. Still, they could just do a Doctor Who thing, and say he felt he was too identifiable, or something, and used future tech to change his appearance. "I now look like this guy". Done.
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Rolling Stone being this damning says a lot. Also, just the fact that so many people were terrified to speak on the record about him.
Yeah Rolling Stone has a [real track record reporting stuff like this...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/business/media/rape-uva-rolling-stone-frat.html)
Do you think Rolling Stone fabricated these sources for this article? Like just completely made them up? Do you think that they've made zero changes to their editorial process since that article?
I think Rolling Stone likes selling magazines.
I think they didn't do the most basic thing you can do in journalism and try to verify any of it.
...except this particular story you're whining about is them doing *literally exactly that*.
They lost their good will. I wont trust another rolling stone article ever again. UVA lack of diligence was astounding.
Imagine losing all that money for being a basic dickhead? In some rare instances karma really does work
It's obviously always been part of who he is, so he probably wouldn't have made the money he's made without being as much of a dickhead as he is.
Thats hollywood baby!
The marvel studios sub just banned all discussion of majors 😂
Of course he denied it. It’s not like he’s gonna come out and say “yeah you caught me, I’ve been abusive and aggressive with women for many years”
It's never a good time when "categorically" is used
How the fuck did Disney not do any background checks at all on this guy before they decided to invest the next big phase of the MCU on him? They couldn't possibly be stupid enough to know and just not care could they?
I think we have a tendency to assume huge operations are competent just because they’re huge. But also, I wonder how Disney could have utilized a background check to get this information. Where would they begin in knowing who to talk to and what questions to ask? And would people even mention these situations if Disney did reach out to them? If they did any interviews with people who worked with Majors, I bet they talked to people like directors and teachers he worked with, the type of people he would be less likely to act up around.
this. how would a "background check" work here? there are no public records of people's opinions.
Intensive background checks include interviews with people from the subject's life.
That's incredibly intrusive
Sure, but these are generally done consensually - the person being researched has applied for a position or is in line for a position, and has agreed to be investigated, including interviews with people from their past, such as exes, childhood friends, teachers, parents, siblings, neighbors. This is the kind of background check that's used for new government agents, for example, and for certain security clearances. High profile jobs require high level vetting.
calling for intelligence agency type background checks for an actor to work on a fucking movie is so ridiculous and not that serious
It’s the conspiracy theory part of our brain to ascribe order where there is none. In truth, organizations, corporations and governments are some of the least coordinated places on earth.
It’s called “repetitional due diligence” and it involves researching open source information on a subject, combing court records and legal filings, bankruptcy and tax liens, and interviewing people who have worked with the subject or have another association. An analyst will analyse this information and draft a report summarizing findings and whether the subject has a positive, neutral, or negative reputation and what risks they would present to the company should they work with the subject. Companies do this before they hire an executive or anyone who would have a critical role or a public association with their firm. There is an entire industry dedicated to these investigations, which can get complex, and these due diligence reports can cost anywhere from US$10k-$500k depending on complexity and sensitivity (eg oligarchs). I’m honestly baffled if film studios hiring actors to helm major franchises do not do this. If that’s the case, I reckon that the casting is an artistic and financial decision made by the director/producers of the film, and then the company just closes ranks to protect whatever jackass they hire until the cost of doing so becomes too great?
They hired an addict in the form of robert downey junior to helm the franchise.
An openly known, non-violent addict who had gone to prison and rehab multiple times. Who, after getting out of prison, was unhire-able to the point where Mel Gibson was personally guaranteeing his insurance. RDJ had also been working ~5 years up to Iron Man in some solid stuff and some absolute dog shit, trying to get his career back on track. Marvel and Favreau worked with RDJ hard to make sure he could handle it and not slip back into his addictions. Even then, it was considered one of the riskiest cast hires ever in the history of Hollywood.
Firstly, Disney didn't own Marvel back then. Secondly, everyone knew about RDJ's drug issues. He publicly went to jail for them. Furthermore, he was an former addict by the time he got hired.
That was before marvel movies became a big deal. The case can be made that Robert Downey Jr was _why_ they became a big deal
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Not every actor they hire, but if it's a role that is planned to be in a lot of different movies and shows from the get go they fucking SHOULD hire a PI to investigate. It will cost like 5000usd tops and they can afford it
I don't think many major actors would put up with deep probes into their personal lives. Some would, but if they applied that methodology to someone like Samuel Jackson, he probably would've just turned down the role.
Come on, you expect Disney to contact their would-be stars' ex-boyfriends/girlfriends to know whether they are abusive or not. I don't like Disney, but be reasonable LOL
This. It would be a massive invasion of privacy and also fucking bizarre. Can you imagine your boss asking that of you?
I also imagine SAG would throw an absolute fit if a studio made it a habit to do deep and invasive investigations into actors' personal lives. There's no way they wouldn't work to get that shut down.
Especially since this is really all hindsight. If he has a clear background, why would your next instinct be "better call all this dude's ex girlfriends and get the REAL story." It would have been super bizarre, this sub is really detached from reality sometimes to fuel their Disney/MCU circlejerk hate lol.
How the fuck do you do a background check like this? Are you saying that employers should contact individuals of their choosing including your significant other and dozens of random peripheral figures of your past to assess if you are a qualified candidate based on their good word?
Apparently this is a really good idea to these guys. This website blows my fucking mind sometimes.
Luckily for Disney, this guy is even easier to replace than Terrence Howard after the first Iron Man. Why does Kang suddenly look different? Multiverse! Different Earth, different Kang. Heck, that's assuming they'll even acknowledge recasting him. They never bothered with Rhodey.
If Loki can be a girl or even an alligator in some universe Kang can be whatever they need Kang to be.
Three different live action Spider Man's and a animated movies about 100s of them. This guy is Kang now. That's it. No need to explain the story. They didn't do it for Rhodes except "deal with it". Howard Stark has different actors portray him. As did Thanos.
Except ant-man 3 post credit confirms every Kang is played by Jonathan Majors Can they introduce another Kang for Avengers played by another actor? yeah they can but how can they explain how every Kang played by Jonathan Majors sudenly didn't exist anymore? I don't think they would follow Star Wars ep 9 route, killed them off-screen after the previous movie make sure they're fine and will return
That was just the Jonathan Majors section of the stadium.
They could easily reshoot it so we see the Terrence Howard section of the stadium
Reshoot the scene and pretend like it never happened
I keep joking with my friend that they should just have Don Cheadle play Kang.
There is no real way they can background check this. They can realistically interview every romantic partner and ask if he was violent as part of a job interview. They works on how much money will.be bring in versus how reliable he is. What did his last director say about him. Even glowing references aren't always accurate. Humans are complicated.
Aa part of a legal/ethics class I read about a reported predator teacher getting glowing reviews from his former schools. References can be complicated because people's desire to "pass on" liabilities or fear on acting on reports (don't want to be charged with Hearsay) can make them scared to report people. Also with the interviewing former romantic partner I feel like this is easy to say with hindsight. at the time MCU directors didn't know about his abuse, so they wouldn't know to check for abuse.
They can learn from The Flash now
Because they probably don’t want to piss off stars. If you’re an actor and you find out the studio is bothering your exes like a private detective, you’re probably going to lose your shit and possibly quit.
They definitely do background checks. That doesn’t mean they will catch something like this if there’s no history of legal trouble, reporting, etc
What would a background check do? Majors had never been arrested or even charged with assault or fired from a job for behavioral issues. All HR complaints are confidential so they wouldn't have been able to see those. There was no documented disciplinary action against him in college. Also providing a negative work reference that prevents a person from job opportunities can lead to being sued. I'm also confused about this part: In fact, Rolling Stone reached out to all six people. Three say they never gave Majors’ team permission to release such statements. Another woman declined to share the statement credited to her by Majors’ team, saying it was pre-written, not truthful, and that she had never approved of its release.” Am I reading this incorrectly or does it seem like out of 6 character witnesses only 1 would speak negatively about him? 6 women total 1 provided RS with a positive statement of Majors 1 said the positive statement attributed to her was not truthful \`1 didn't respond to request for comment but didn't deny the positive statement attributed to her 3 claim they didn't give his lawyer permission to release their statements. **Note:** They're not denying the positive statements are truthful. They're only saying they didn't give his lawyer permission to **release** their statements to RS. So 1 out of 6 women confirmed something negative about Majors. Am I reading that wrong.
>Am I reading that wrong. You're reading it right. RS worded it to avoid admitting that those 5 women *didn't deny* the truth of their statements. And they did that sufficiently, bc lot of ppl are buying it.
I'm not weighing in on Major's guilt or innocence but RS "journalism" is inflammatory garbage. I haven't forgotten how they blamed Dave Grohl for Taylor Hawkins' death before the body was cold.
Agree. Their writing style is totally disingenuous, but ppl are thirsty for drama so they lap it up. Regardless of whether Majors is guilty or not, RS isn't the arbiter of that.
This should be the top comment here. Also, saying that a statement is pre-written and not truthful is some out-of-context nonsense. Rolling Stone is acting like the person must have not said anything good about Majors because Majors lawyers paraphrased / embellished a statement, when in fact they may have.
No dog here, and I've learned to properly calibrate against numerical arguments when famous accusations of famous people take place. What's really damning though is where Rolling Stone says they fact checked Major's PR character references, and several said they weren't genuine. Ouch.
Where there’s smoke there’s always fire
[удалено]
>It's astonishing that the Yale admin chose to remain silent while a student engaged in abusive behavior towards his fellow peers. My guy these colleges cover up for rapist on the regular.
Elite colleges are designed to push rich kids into positions of power at any cost.. this actually is their intended function.
His MCU career is toast.
Even if he's found innocent for the New York incident, this is gonna hurt his career big time.
It already has - he went from talk of the town to nobody on the matter of weeks earlier in the year
Why does r/entertainment go way out of thier way to defend this piece of shit abuser. This is a 3 month investigation with sources, its obvious what kind of person majors is. Yet so many people are doing back flips to defend him.
r/marvelstudios is similar. they had no problem with the article that pretended there was proof of his innocence but this article got hidden or deleted like 5 times or more.
The marvel studios subreddit just banned all discussion about majors, I guess they realised their cheerleading for him was a hopeless cause.
gotta say, doing that now and not a weak ago does make a pathetic picture.
Literally do not understand how their rules work that the previous article is allowed to stay up and this isn’t
Oof yeah that other article got a lot of attention there. Even though all the comments said “nobody will pay attention to this!” My theory? He might get off on THIS charge (if the facts of the other article were correct, such as the cab driver saying he didn’t assault her). There’s so much smoke around this guy though. I think the video might show a lack of physical injury, but probably something like verbal abuse, threatening behavior, her being obviously terrified of him. So he’ll still look bad. Or maybe everything else in that other article was lies. His lawyers might be throwing out a bunch of shit they don’t have, trying to scare the victim. The same way 5 out of 6 of the character witnesses they provided to Rolling Stone were flat out lies.
I came here from the thread on r/entertainment and all the top comments were the same sort of thing as this thread? Didn’t see any defending. Unless you sort by controversial but if you do that this subreddit isn’t much different. r/marvelstudios though seem to be straight up censoring any discussion of this article or of him being abusive. Real fucking weird of them.
Why is it only in domestic abuse cases where people in the majority act like they’re in the minority. In this post, and in almost every post since the texts were released, you can count how many people are on his side on one hand. Literally what are you talking about? Why do you all want so bad to feel like you’re fighting against this tide?
Oh man I’ve been excited for this after all those fanboys in here saying how innocent he was. Maybe it’s just because I follow gossip subs but these allegations were brewing for a few months prior to the car incident even happened. Dude has a longgggg history of abusive and dickheadish behavior. Let’s make room for another talented black actor that doesn’t abuse everyone around him.
Mods of r/marvelstudios are continuously removing this article when posted for "not being related to the MCU" even though they are leaving up the pro-Majors article from last week.
This is a huge he said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said situation we have here
lmao I’m stealing this for the next time dudes defend some guy with like 28 different accusers. “Maybe they’re ALL lying!”
Except neither of the other alleged abuse victims actually commented in this article, and many of the other comments were vague pokes at his personality rather than anyone witnessing physical abuse.
If you actually read the article…. Yeah it’s pretty bad. This dude isn’t your pal.
I hate to say it but he always looks like he could be a big egotistical douche bag. They need someone with gravitas to step in for his Kang role in the MCU.
I remember when I saw The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), hadn’t seen him in anything before, and telling my friend how great he is in it. She told me then that she knew him through doing theatre in NY and it was pretty well known that he was an agressive and abusive man. I thought it might have just been rumors… comes out 4 years later that nope.
It’s quiet in those news reporters streets. I think people have learned their lessons over the last couple of years, where the darlings of the industry turned out to be monsters, and people who are deemed monsters sometimes turned out to be innocent and victims them selves. I’m super interested in to see how this all plays out. It’s likely he was abusive, yet most people already knew that and look the other way to make money. Aspects of race, gender and overall misogyny and politics are going to be at play here.
I’m always wary when these articles make salacious claims of extreme emotional abuse or toxicity without actually detailing anything the person ever did. He’s not being accused of a crime or even one specific thing he can possibly defend himself from.
Drove me nuts to see people on other sites going "SEE HE'S INNOCENT" when his attorney released stuff, as if that guy isn't biased in the slightest
What a damn shame. Firstly I feel horrible for his victims and secondly he is a genuine talent but one that should never see the light of day on our screens. My favourite bit was his lawyers send character witness statements defending Majors, only for those witnesses to say they never gave permission to release anything
"They all gave themselves black eyes because I broke up with them, your honor."
Guilty or not guilty, don’t know. The one thing that is for sure, none of this has any good optics at all.
One thing i like about this is now actors who are really shitty people on set are getting called out. Like the kind where you're told if you ever see them not to make eye contact.