Six months after Jonathan Majors was found guilty of domestic assault and harassment, some people seem eager to welcome him back to Hollywood. Last week, Variety reported that Majors has been cast in Martin Villenueve’s Merciless — the disgraced actor’s first movie since being dropped from Marvel world last year amid assault allegations. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Unlocked Impact Awards apparently decided that Majors deserved an award for “perseverance.”
Majors was arrested in March 2023 and accused of hitting his then-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, twisting her arm, and fracturing her finger during a fight. At trial, prosecutors alleged that Majors “engaged in cruel and manipulative patterns of psychological and physical abuse” toward Jabbari after she found out he cheated on her. He denied all allegations, and in December, a jury found him guilty of domestic assault and harassment. He is currently in a court-mandated 52-week batterer’s intervention program.
On Friday, Majors showed up at the second annual Hollywood Unlocked Impact Awards. There, self-help guru Iyanla Vanzant presented him with an award for “perseverance” — while, somewhat confusingly, referencing her own experience with domestic abuse. “As a woman who spent nine years in an abusive marriage, I am both humbled and honored to present this award, the Perseverance Award, to my brother Jonathan Majors,” she said, adding that God knows Majors’s heart and he should not worry about “cancellation.” She also praised “the excellence that you bring to the mastery of your craft, despite the opinion of human beings.”
Upon accepting the award, Majors said the past year “tested” and “strengthened” his faith, per Variety. He said that while he knows he’s “imperfect” and has “shortcomings,” he feels like he’s had to “embody” perseverance “more than I wished or wanted to” because “we live in a world where men — Black men in particular — are propped up as either superheroes or supervillains.” He said that when he was arrested, “as a Black man in the criminal justice system, I felt anger. I felt sadness, hurt, surprise.” Majors thanked Will Smith, Tyler Perry, David Oyelowo, and his girlfriend, Meagan Good, for supporting him.
